Mayhem at the museum

Things go awry at the Dinosaur Museum on a busy Thursday at closing time -- with the coat check attendant's parakeet making the rounds. A child named Yuri is balancing precariously on the guardrail near two large dinosaur skeletons when Yuri's fear of birds leads to a "really big catastrophe!" While the child cowers at the sight of the immense pile of collapsed dinosaur bones, the second-person narration guides readers through a breathing exercise: "But then you calmly breathe in and out two hundred and eighty-three times. It takes a while, but it really does help to blow away the worst of your worries." It also helps that all the visitors react with kindness. Soft illustrations with detailed line work capture the great scale of the museum and its dinosaur skeletons contrasted with the museum visitors and the tiny parakeet who flits from scene to scene. Smart page compositions rely partly on the museum architecture to visually tell the story, while the text helps mollify the general fear and embarrassment mistakes can produce. It takes all night, but by morning the museum-goers have helped put those dinosaur bones back together again, though arranged in a different way that pays homage to the parakeet's heritage in the dinosaur world. Full of details to observe, this Swiss import manages to combine dinosaur drama with practical emotional support for persevering through embarrassing moments. Julie RoachNovember/December 2025 p.45 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The unthinkable happens during a museum visit. Clad in a red cap, the tan-skinned, dark-haired Yuri loves dinosaurs but fears birds. When a parakeet belonging to the coat check attendant flies off to make its nightly rounds, savvy readers might have a clue as to what's in store. Yuri is balancing on the railing surrounding two enormous skeletons and a third smaller one when it happens--"the really REALLY BIIIIG catastrophe….The kind of catastrophe that makes you think nothing will ever be right again. You feel so quiet. You feel so small." Spotting the bird, Yuri flinches, and the exhibit is reduced to a pile of bones. The youngster is mortified, but luckily the other museumgoers--a diverse group of adults and children--toil all night, reassembling hundreds (maybe thousands) of bones. In the morning, the group admires their work. "Catastrophe. What catastrophe?" This Swiss import, translated from German, features orderly, elegant illustrations with fine black sketchy outlines. A quirky tone creeps in as Brückner plays with the gutter and concludes her tale on a surprising, whimsical note; her dramatic but ultimately reassuring second-person narration highlights the tragicomic aspects of the story. Be sure to share this one before--or after--a museum visit. Warmly witty fare that will elicit smiles from anyone who's ever committed a public gaffe.(Picture book. 4-7) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.