There's a Dinosaur on the 13th Floor

by Wade Bradford, Kevin Hawkes (Illustrator)

Overview

The outcome is anything but predictable when an exhausted hotel guest sets out in search of sleep in this kid-pleasing romp full of visual humor.

Will Mr. Snore ever get some shut-eye at the busy Sharemore Hotel? The room on the first floor is too noisy. The room on the second floor is too crowded. The room on the third floor is too damp. Everywhere Mr. Snore goes, with a dutiful bellhop leading the way, he encounters something that’s bound to keep him awake. Why is it so hard to find some peace and quiet? Perhaps Mr. Snore will have better luck on the thirteenth floor. . . . From author and playwright Wade Bradford and award-winning illustrator Kevin Hawkes comes a laugh-out-loud tale that plays with expectations and revelations — and reveals a surprisingly thought-provoking final twist.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763686659
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	10/02/2018
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.90(w) x 11.40(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Wade Bradford teaches English at Moorpark College and is the author of Why Do I Have to Make My Bed? and Around the World in a Bathtub. Along with picture books, he has written more than thirty-five plays. Wade Bradford lives in southern California, where he enjoys "napping, snoozing, and occasionally snoring."

Kevin Hawkes is the illustrator of many books for children, including the award-winning Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen; A Little Bitty Man and Other Poems for the Very Young by Marilyn Nelson, Pamela Espeland, and Halfdan Rasmussen; and The Three Mouths of Little Tom Drum by Nancy Willard. Kevin Hawkes lives with his family in southern Maine.

Editorial Reviews

The bellhop’s unflappability comically contrasts the hotel guest’s escalating exasperation as they climb the stairs to one room after another, encountering dangling spiders, giraffes, and a mazelike hamster colony...Acrylic and ink pictures by Hawkes (Imagine That!) amplify the tale’s humor with such playful flourishes as snakes wrapped around the art-deco hotel’s pillars, a rodent perched on a chandelier, and Mr. Snore and the dinosaur’s matching pince-nez and bunny slippers.
—Publishers Weekly

A fun addition to bedtime-themed books that is perfectly suited for one-on-one or small group sharing.
—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2018-07-30

This hotel is for the birds! (And spiders, mice, pigs….)

Mr. Snore, a very tired musician whose face looks like one colossal nose, checks into the Sharemore Hotel one evening. Sadly, the rooming accommodations on the first floor are not up to Mr. Snore's standards, as the bed is already occupied by a small mouse sleeping on the pillow. The bellhop, who bears a passing resemblance to Tintin, relocates Mr. Snore to the second floor, where he finds a covers-hogging hog. This pattern repeats with each floor until Mr. Snore reaches the 13th and the titular dinosaur. At this point, the joke turns, and it is the annoyed dino who requests a new room when it finds Mr. Snore snoozing on its pillow. The book ends with the exhausted dinosaur sleeping in the lobby with the bellhop. Overall, the execution is fair, if a tad bland. While the page turns reveal each new animal, the preceding images don't give much in the way of hints as to what they will be, denying young readers a chance to develop their predictive skills. Some of the rooms' doors are fancifully styled to match their inhabitants, but most are plain—a missed opportunity. The acrylic-and-ink illustrations are amusing enough, but the caricature of Mr. Snore and his schnoz is an odd choice. Both Mr. Snore and the bellhop are white.

Make reservations elsewhere. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews