Rex
PreSchool-Grade 2–At the end of each school day, the class pet chameleon goes home with a different child, along with a journal. The experiences that the students record and the accompanying pictures are largely flights of fancy, as tiny Rex is depicted as an enormousTyrannasaurus Rexthat falls out of a window unscathed and terrorizes customers in a flower shop. He goes to the movies and a restaurant, is dressed as Malibu Barbie, and takes a dip in a pool. While there is humor in the situations described, the line between fantasy and reality is blurred, and readers are slightly uncomfortable, knowing that if there are any factual roots to the stories, the animal is being cavalierly treated if not downright abused. The color cartoon illustrations have a lot of energy, but sometimes the childlike drawings are totally unattractive.–Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.