Sleepovers don’t always come with a theme, but with two boys and two new picture books featuring green dinosaur pancakes that come to life at the hands of a magical grandmother, a theme happened. The books are written by Kat Pigott and illustrated by Mason Sibley who began the illustrations before he was even a teenager!
The two grandsons and I read the first book, Green Dinosaur Pancakes, with a tale of Kole visiting his grandmother who cooked green dinosaur pancakes for him for breakfast. The moment she turned her back, they let out a roar and turned into huge green dinosaurs. The mayhem that ensues involves dripping butter and flying syrup.
We continued with the second book, I See You, Green Dinosaur, where a green, scaly T-Rex hops off the plate and begins stalking Kole, following him everywhere with a grin – to the tub at bath time, to the choir at church, and to school. Try as he may, Kole can’t shake him. Fortunately, when Kole encounters a bully, the dinosaur finally comes in handy and helps him remember wise words from his magical grandmother.
The book grandmother is called “Nana” instead of “Grandma,” but the boys and I thought that was close enough and planned our own green dinosaur pancakes for breakfast. Fortunately, my pancakes stayed on the plate, melted generous portions of butter, and soaked up the syrup.
I mentioned in a recent blog that sometimes a regional publisher is a perfect fit for a book, and these books were published by regional Pelican Publishing in New Orleans that was recently acquired by Arcadia Publishing. Naturally, the Pelican authors wondered if this would be a positive or negative change. The latest news is that Arcadia Publishing has formed a children’s division called Arcadia Children’s Books and is committed to having local authors associated with each book as a model for their program. This sounds promising to me.