The Blurb On The Back:

Poopy Easter!

Danny and Dinosaur are on an Easter-egg hunt in Fairytale Land!

They search up beanstalks and fairytale towers, but soon find themselves in dragon-shaped trouble …

Can Dino’s rumbling tummy help them escape?

Lift the flaps to discover lots of egg-cellent surprises!

THE DINOSAUR THAT POOPED EASTER was released in the United Kingdom on 16th February 2023.  Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

You can order THE DINOSAUR THAT POOPED EASTER by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

The Review (Cut For Spoilers):

Danny and Dinosaur are looking for Easter eggs in Fairytale Land so that they can use them for the feast they are planing to hold.  Helped by Little Red, the Three Little Pigs and Hansel and Gretel they gather up as many eggs as they can (even though Dinosaur is more interested in gobbling his down) but when they find that a dragon has a whole hoard of eggs in their cave and is not interested in letting Danny, Dinosaur and their friends take them and there is only one way that they can escape …?

Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter’s Easter-themed picture book (gamely illustrated by Garry Parsons and part of a series) certainly delivers on the poo and it’s always fun to read a book with hidden panels and bits to lift but the rhymes are lacking and the story is quite lacking.  Younger readers will probably love it on the basis that anything poo-related is hilarious but while I do love good poo and fart jokes, this just didn’t work for me.

I picked this up because I had heard of Fletcher and Poynter’s DINOSAUR WHO POOPED SERIES and knowing that it was very popular with younger readers wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

So the good news is that if you have a younger reader who loves anything poop related then they will probably love this book.  There is a lot of poop.  A looooooootttt of poop.  There is one scene that is basically a poop-nami flowing over a Fairytale Land village and while Parsons’s illustration doesn’t go for full brown gore, there is absolutely no doubting what is going on.  And to be honest, I don’t really have a problem with that – I enjoy a good poop joke and a good fart joke and the whole purpose of this book is to build up to the moment when Dionsaur does a big poop and saves the day.  So on that basis, I cannot complain because you get what the title promises.

On the negative side, the storytelling here is pretty lazy.  There is nothing that stands out about Fairytale Land or Danny and Dinosaur (other than that Dinosaur is greedy and poops a lot).  You see familiar fairytale characters like Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and Hansel and Gretel but they don’t really do anything other than tag along and Fletcher and Poynter don’t have anything new to say about them.  The book uses rhymes, which I’m not a big fan of because they can be hackneyed and strained and, unfortunately, I found that to be the case here.

I did enjoy the flaps with their various reveals and I think that Parsons’s illustrations are gamely done and there is no doubting that a fair amount of money has gone into the production of this book if the foil in the cover is any judge but ultimately, I found the whole thing to be a bit lacklustre.  It’s silly but in a tedious way rather than an entertaining one and therefore, I don’t think I’ll continue with this series.