Dinosaur Detective's Search-and-Find Rescue Mission by Sophie Guerrive
| Dinosaur Detective's Search-and-Find Rescue Mission by Sophie Guerrive | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A witty and clever Where's Wally-type, that will please with the design, but probably also torment with the difficulty. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 32 | Date: August 2017 |
| Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9781786030719 | |
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This is a horrific world. Monsters leer over all the mountain tops, there's a giant octopus in one building and a green giant's arms coming through the windows of another, and everywhere you look someone has lost something. Luckily the Dinosaur Detective is on hand to help. Yes, despite his paws looking incredibly ungainly on the controls of his flying machine, he is able to visit all eleven zones, and find the five things requested of him in each. But can you?
There has probably been no end of these books over the years, all based on the same premise – give a young child a short list but a huge diorama full of detail, and get them to find the things on the list. I can't rate this against a host of them, but I can tell you what I think about this one – I think very highly of it, certainly as an artistic piece. The eleven pages all look fine – not too detailed so as to be mind-boggling, but often with hidden depths, and as a result the finding of several things on the list (or otherwise) generally creates a suitable vocal noise as a result.
The spreads all look very diverse, too, and completely different in nature and style, as is only fitting. They all have quite the comic book aspect – witness the big cats in the jungle looking a little gormless – which is something you have to remember when seeking things out. I thought I'd found the barking dog in the mountains, when I hadn't – I knew it looked more like a wolf, but there's a cartoonish quirk that should have given the game away. But it was a good thing I did check my answers as I went along, for I soon realised the answer pages at the back gave six answers, when the list was only five items long… Yes, as soon as you get to the end, you are requested to go round one more time and find one final thing on each spread. (And I tell you now, the mountain one is NOT easy.)
Value this clearly is, then. It certainly takes you the better part of an hour to find everything, and then you have the images themselves to pore over, with their quirks – the giant frogs sucking up the ocean through straws in the sea-monster realm, and so on. I enjoyed the style, I appreciated the difficulty level, and I was also very, very grateful for the final factor that makes this worth recommending – none of the things to be found disappear in the centre fold, leaving you helpless in your quest.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
Labyrinth by Theo Guignard combines slightly easier tasks with the whole maze-following experience.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Dinosaur Detective's Search-and-Find Rescue Mission by Sophie Guerrive at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Dinosaur Detective's Search-and-Find Rescue Mission by Sophie Guerrive at Amazon.com.
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