How to Keep Dinosaurs is one of the best kids' books ever. At first I thought the books seemed really familiar and then I realized (realised?) that it's a parody of Bruce Fogle DVM's The Encyclopedia of the Dog.I bought it because I'm supposed to be doing a unit on dinosaurs with the kids I work with. Not only does this book teach a great deal about how much the dinosaurs would need to eat and how much room they would need to survive. There are great diagrams that show how these things measure up to things from modern everyday life. It also does a great deal of speculation about how dinosaurs might behave in captivity. The speculation isn't just humor, it's also a somewhat good exercise in speculative logic.
The pictures in the book are also wonderful. Some of them are interesting takes on classic animal pictures and others are probably soon to be classics. There are several that I'd love to have as posters.
There are a few problems with the book. First of all, I think a lot of the humor would be lost on children, at least American children. The book was initially published for British children and the culture is just different enough that some just might not get the sarcasm inherent in the text. It's also written at a pretty high level, so it's definitely something that would have to be read with an adult. Not that it's a bad thing. I just wish there were more truly humorous things that young people could handle reading on their own.
MY RATING: 4/5
This film is fantastic. Pedro Almodóvar has done it again! Granted this isn't quite as good as All About My Mother, but it's definitely better than Talk to Her. I really enjoyed everything about this film. The storytelling was wonderful. The costuming was to die for and the cinematography was absolutely genius.
The only reason I feel bad about seeing this film is because I didn't go to The Oaks Theater to see it. I went instead to Pittsburgh Filmmakers Regent Square Theater on a Monday night instead.
My Rating: 5/5
I thought this film was okay, but I didn't think it was all that. I'm glad I saw it, but I wouldn't see it again (at least not for a few years).
My Rating: 3/5