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If I Had a Raptor

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By DeeDee
Cover image for If I had a raptor
If I Had a Raptor
By George O'Connor
Candlewick Press, 2014. unpaged picture book

In this new addition to our Dinosaur picture book section, a little girl with curly pigtails dreams of having a pet raptor. She imagines that raptor would start out fluffy and cute, and she would put a bell around its neck so it wouldn't get lost.  When the raptor got bigger it would stay up all night and hunt little birds, but the little girl would still love it and it would love her. The fun of this story is that everything that is used to describe the raptor could be used to describe a cat.  The raptor in the illustrations is very cat-like while still looking like a dinosaur, yet things done by a little cat become much more ominous when done by a large dinosaur. The perky cartoon illustrations make it clear that the little girl maintains complete control of the situation throughout. O'Connor seems to have a good grasp of a small child's sense of humor.
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