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Review: Jurassic Grampa
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Harold Walters

Reviewer Harold Walters is not famous yet though he has been writing for half a life time. Over the years his short stories have appeared in a number of local magazines. Presently, and for more than a decade, he has written a column for Downhome magazine. He writes a humour column (My Imperfect Slant) for a local weekly, The Charter.He writes a bi-weekly book column (Book ReMarks) that is carried by several local papers.  He has also done book reviews for a number of magazines and newspapers. Harold is almost a dinosaur, but he is not famous yet.

 
By Harold Walters
Published on January 27, 2009
 


Author: Kirk Scroggs

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978-0-316-00692-7

Written and illustrated by Kirk Scroggs, Jurassic Grampa is #10 in the Wiley & Grampa’s Creature Features series.This is a book for young readers and as such is chock-a-block with zany action that will delight youngsters eager to go adventuring in the comical world of the absurd.





 

Click Here To Purchase Wiley & Grampa #10: Jurassic Grampa (Wiley & Grampa's Creature Features)

Author: Kirk Scroggs

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978-0-316-00692-7

Written and illustrated by Kirk Scroggs, Jurassic Grampa is #10 in the Wiley & Grampa’s Creature Features series. This is a book for young readers and as such is chock-a-block with zany action that will delight youngsters eager to go adventuring in the comical world of the absurd.

After a brief introductory explanation of a cross section of the Earth’s crust—which not only contains “nutrients, minerals and juicy earthworms” but also a discarded Play Station—Wiley takes us quickly to “an abandoned aluminum foil mine called Nostril Caverns.”  Imagine the glee of children—who for reasons adults seem to have forgotten, are amused by almost anything involving body parts and functions—when Wiley and his family enter the mine’s dripping nasal passage.

Inside the cavern Gramps unearths what is mistakenly believed to be a petrified dinosaur egg, and in the process triggers a cave-in. In the nick of time, Gramma—who has Big Hair reminiscent of Rapunzel’s—loops her locks vine-like around a stalactite and swings her family to safety across a chasm.

Before the treasure can be carried home to Gingham County it is high-jacked by the story’s villains, Hans Lotion and his grandson Jurgen. The villains flee into the foothills; in the illustration, hills shaped like—guess what?—feet. 

Soon after, something strange starts to happen in Gingham County. All the pets that munch on Nature’s Nuggets pet food transform into frightening prehistoric creatures. Even Wily’s pet lizard, Lupe, changes into a gigantic T-Rex.

The rapidly increasing horde of monsters wreaks havoc in the town. Puppies become marauding wooly mammoths; chickens become dive-bombing pterodactyls; Merle the cat becomes a saber tooth tiger.

The story reaches its climax at a theme park called Dino Dome. The showdown involves countless sips of Mighty Lax, a cathartic that can “move mountains,” and endless line-ups at the Dino Dome’s toilets. Again, youngsters will chortle and giggle at the potty predicaments.

While most of Jurassic Grampa is for children, parts of the text—but especially the illustrations—are designed for adults reading to their kids and grandchildren. For instance, a drawing of a landmark shaped like a hand, thumb and forefinger forming an OK sign, with a nearby sign post marked “A-Ok Corral.” Not all youngsters will appreciate this old-west allusion.

If Jurassic Gramps the first of the Creature Features you encounter, it will likely send you searching for the earlier titles in the series. Presented in the tradition of Captain Underpants, the book will keep bedtime readers—young and old alike—chuckling at the text and searching the illustrations for wacky details.


Click Here To Purchase Wiley & Grampa #10: Jurassic Grampa (Wiley & Grampa's Creature Features)