– Teachers, Take Note! –

Who doesn’t love show-and-tell? Oh, maybe the third-grade class that a little-redheaded boy brings an unusual pet to? And maybe that unusual pet is a pterodactyl?

“I brought my pterodactyl into school for show-and-tell. / He almost ate two kids before we heard the morning bell.”

That day, nothing runs smoothly at the school. The kids are terrified, but the pterodactyl is having a wonderful school experience. When it’s time to read, the kids hold up books as though they are doing just that, but they are all peaking around their books to watch the creature in their classroom lick a boy’s head.

And to make this illustration even funnier the kids are reading books that say: What Do Dinosaurs Eat?, Big Beasts, How to Train Your Monster, Oh, No!, Look Behind You, etc.

At recess, they all enjoy playing hide-and-seek. (I’ll let you guess about that illustration and who’s hiding!)

“In math my pterodactyl learned that numbers can be fun.”

The distraught teacher is at the board with a written math example.

“A class had 21 students. Only 14 were present. What fraction of the class was absent?”

In each example of the chaos happening in the classroom, the little-redheaded boy is smiling and seemingly oblivious to what is happening. But will there be any students left when it’s time for show-and-tell to begin?

My Thoughts

What Concerned Me: Nothing

What I Liked Most: This is nothing more than a simple, silly story to enjoy. It has no hidden message unless it’s meant for teachers. That they should be very, very specific about appropriate things that can be brought for show-and-tell!

The illustrations are extremely well done and a big part of the book. Though the children show fear and concern, the pterodactyl is anything but frightening to look at. Yes, he wreaks havoc in the classroom, but he is portrayed as a happy guy who is unaware of what is happening all around him, pretty much like his owner.

For a fun, nonsensical read, I loved this book.

Author: Thad Krasnesky
Illustrator: Tanya Leonello
Publisher: Flashlight Press (October 2018)