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Dazzle the dinosaur3/5/2023 I remember really liking this book as a kid. The other possibility, barring a horribly mutated Stegosaurus, is an Edaphosaurus, which would be just as anachronistic as Dimetrodon, and more obscure. Meanwhile, Dazzle is raised by a family of Maiasaura and his best friend is a Maiasaura named Maia (of course), and hey, if he can’t find another of his kind and Maia has to be his girlfriend someday, it would help for her to be cladistically similar, if not the same species and not separated by millions of years and whole continents. Dazzle is probably a herbivore, given the book’s typical villain role for carnivorous dinosaurs, which eliminates Spinosaurus and a painfully anachronistic Dimetrodon. That’s what the author of the wiki page i cite identifies him as, and it does make the most sense. First, what exactly is Dazzle? The best guess seems to be an Ouranosaurus. Dazzle is cute and blue and he’s got that cool shiny gimmick shared by his more famous cousin the Rainbow Fish (without the message about giving up what makes you special to fit in). Today, it’s Dazzle the Dinosaur, or rather, the character of the same name. I would check them out from the library by the armload, then let them sit until the due date because i just couldn’t bring myself to read them, as much as I told myself I should like them.īut I’m not talking about those books today. I think I experienced some of my first media-related guilt with those things. Okay, how about those books that were all about the size of an 8 1/2x11 and had hard, pale covers, usually with a pretty cool picture of a dinosaur that hid their text-heavy interior? (by the way, if anyone remembers what those books were called, let me know, I forgot and I want to feature them sometime) Those were okay, but I always preferred looking at the art on the cover than actually reading their repetitive plots. No, I want something with dinosaurs in their natural habitat. Yeah there were the Dinofours, but I found the premise of dinosaurs going to preschool got old fast. Nowadays kids are spoiled with a million Dinosaur Train tie-in books, but back in the day, options were kind of limited for dinosaur books with plots. Real World Inspiration: Ouranosaurus? Maybe? There is some fact woven into this fantasy, but these wide-eyed dinosaurs have more in common with Barney than with the exhibits of a natural history museum.First Appearance: you guessed it, Dazzle the Dinosaur Then the good news spreads from the Quetzalcoatlus and finally the Maiasaurus group is able to return to their cave (their old home). As the "Dragonsaurus" is defeated, he gives back the Maiasauruses their old home. Pfister's soft pen-and-wash illustrations, rendered in soothing hues of lavender, soft green and blue are pretty, though oddly bland-with the exception, of course, of Dazzle's shiny spines. Dazzle vows to rout the evil "Dragonsaurus" who drove the Maiasauruses from their valley, a quest ensues, and the flashy hero's shiny spines save the day. He hatches at the same time as little Maia (a Maiasaurus), and they become fast "siblings" (since Maia adopts Dazzle as a brother), exploring the valley where they live and dodging its many dangers-including the bloodthirsty Tyrannosaurus Rex. Readers first meet Dazzle (an Ouranosaurus) as a sparkly egg that has mysteriously appeared in Mother Maiasaurus's nest. The appeal of this somewhat run-of-the-mill story is boosted by the use of a reflective overlay on the tiny prehistoric hero's spines-the same technique that brought bestsellerdom to Pfister's The Rainbow Fish.
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