Old MacDino had a farm
(Book)

Brightly colored dinosaurs raise a ruckus on Old MacDino's farm. Just when it looks like things have settled down--dinos commingling peacefully with contemporary farm animals--Tyrannosaurus rex arrives ("With a Roar! Roar! here, and a Roar! Roar! there... / E-I-E-I-RUN!"). The varied typefaces, slanting lines of text, and boisterous illustrations lend energy to this lively variation of "Old MacDonald. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Outsized new livestock drive the familiar farmyard sing-along residents into a tizzy.Entirely a one-trick pony, this umpteenth "Old MacDonald" spinoff wedges dinosaurs into the barnyard and lyric with little visible effort to make them fit: "Old MacDino had a farm, E-I-E-I-O! / And on this farm he had a / DIPLODOCUS! / (dih-PLOD-uh-kus) / E-I-E-I-O!" (or, at the end of the verse, "E-I-E-I-Argh!"). In the cartoon illustration, overalls-clad MacDinowhite, wide-eyed, and open-mouthedstands and rather superfluously points at a huge green dino that is chowing down on a pile of hay as cattle and poultry hang around watching. Likewise, a pterodactyl (TARE-uh-DACK-tul) zooms in with a "Swoosh! Swoosh! here, / and a Swoosh! Swoosh! there," a stegosaurus stomps along and (literally) upsets the apple cart, and a smiling velociraptor charges a herd of smiling sheep as the (smiling) sheepdog heads in the opposite direction. Finally a purple T. Rex comes charging out of the gray (or pink or blue, depending on the picture) barn with a "Roar! Roar!" and prompts everyone to "E-I-E-I-RUN!" The dinosaurs may make this a minor storytime hit, but more and juicier twists on the song abound. E-I-E-I-Bleh. (Picture book. 5-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.