If a T. Rex Crashes Your Birthday Party (Hardcover)

You never know what will happen when a T. Rex crashes your birthday party.

Ahhhhh!  We officially passed what we have dubbed ‘The Birthday Season’ in our household and it feels so good!  My oldest daughter (who had a fantastic party filled with Tie Dye shirts and cakes) and I both have July birthdays that are less than a week apart.  Next, my husband has a birthday six weeks after that….and you guessed it, our youngest child has HER birthday just three weeks after my husband’s!  There wasn’t any sort of plan to this madness and it is also coupled with the fact that my MIL, FIL, SIL, and little sister all have birthdays in between that time.  Talk about a birthday bonanza!  One you have kids, though, the birthday parties are strictly for the kids and these days you invite all the kids from your child’s class.  Yes, even in preschool!  To save ourselves a little sanity, we allow our oldest to have a full blown party with her friends and the youngest gets a super fun party with just our family while we take goodies into her class to celebrate at the end of her school day per their own rules.  We have learned from experience that when our kids are younger, all they care about is getting goodies and blowing out their candles.  Presents and themes are almost secondary until they reach elementary school, so we decided to give ourselves a break with our youngest and it has been wonderful.  Brie’s biggest delight was being able to blow out her three candles ALL BY HERSELF this year and getting to eat icing.  Oh, happy day! I just adore that age!

Seeing as we just past Brie’s birthday, she is still on a birthday theme kick and LOVED us reading If a T. Rex Crashes Your Birthday Party to her.  She has a thing for dinosaurs thanks to her older sister’s fondness for archeology and paleontology (she basically just loves to find ‘treasures’ by digging in the dirt!), so she finds them fascinating.  I’m not sure if my explanations that T. Rex’s are now extinct although they once roamed the earth and that there are still species that are from that era, but nevertheless, the idea a dinosaur could come to her party excited her.  “Why don’t we invite one next time?” she asked me.  “I’ll have to check his schedule!” I smiled.  See, this T. Rex makes the birthday boy super happy, but then the dino gets a tad bit scary, stomping and roaring about and eyeing his birthday hat as a possible decoration for his next (human!) meal.  However, this is a story with a twist and a great book for kids who love parties, fun, and dinosaurs that may just end up on their guest list for every birthday party in the future.  LOVE!

About the Author:  Jill Esbaum is the award-winning author of many picture books, including I Am Cow, Hear Me Moo! and I Hatched! (both Penguin). She also enjoys writing a variety of nonfiction books for National Geographic Kids, including the popular Angry Birds Playground series. Jill lives on a farm in IA. Learn more at jillesbaum.com and picturebookbuilders.com.

About the Illustrator:  Dasha Tolstikova is an illustrator whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and New Yorker. Her picture book The Jacket (Enchanted Lion Books), written by Kirsten Hall, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2014. She wrote and illustrated the graphic novel A Year Without Mom (Groundwood Books). She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more about Dasha at dashatolstikova.com.

If a T. Rex Crashes Your Birthday Party (Hardcover)

http://www.sterlingpublishing.com

List Price: $ 14.95