"Trouble At The Dinosaur Cafe" By: Brian Moses

After reading this book I didn't think it was anything special. The book starts off by naming the various characters of the book, but it simply lists who they are rather than introducing them to the reader. In addition to the lack of character development in this book it also has a very weak plot. The Tyrannosaurus stomps into the cafe, and threatens to make the customers part of his meal. The author chose to solve this problem by having the customers of the cafe work together and beat up the T-Rex. While this story attempts to send positive messages to its readers they aren't sent in a positive way. The vegetarian dinosaurs work together, and beat up the T-Rex until he runs out of the cafe. While it is an important message to work together, beating up your own kind is not a positive message.
I don't think that this would be my first choice when choosing a book to read to my classroom. Although, the one good thing this book does is it rhymes. I think that if I was working with my students on a rhyming unit this book could be one of many on my book cart for the unit.