We're so excited to be able to reveal the cover of Cory Putman Oakes' book DINOSAUR BOY, which hits shelves in February 2015! Read below to learn more about the awesome characters in DINOSAUR BOY --- which follows Sawyer, who grows 17 stegosaurus-like spikes down his back the summer before fifth grade --- and to see the eye-popping cover image!
Sawyer, the main character of DINOSAUR BOY, has a rather unusual problem.
The summer before fifth grade, his dinosaur gene kicks in, causing him to grow 17 bony plates down his back and a tail with four razor-sharp, foot-long spikes at the end of it.
Then he has to go back to school.
Part of the fun of writing this book was figuring out what sort of unique challenges a kid who was half Stegosaurus would have to face. Obviously, walking around with razor-sharp spikes at the end of his tail was going to get dicey. (You can probably guess, by looking at the cover, how he deals with this particular issue.) Fitting all of his dinosaur parts into his tiny classroom desk was also bound to be a problem. And of course, not everyone at school is cool with the idea of having a part-dinosaur in their midst.
The kids who bully Sawyer are all based on carnivorous dinosaurs that lived in the same time period as Stegosaurus (the late Jurassic period --- about 150 million years ago). The bullies are all 100% human, but share some characteristics (physical and otherwise) with their dinosaur namesakes.
The ringleader of the bullies, Allan, is named for Allosaurus, a large carnivorous dinosaur that looked a lot like T. rex (only smaller) and which fossil evidence suggests was Stegosaurus’s main nemesis. Like his namesake, Allan has a large head, a heavy brow ridge and small arms. He is almost always chewing on some sort of meat, which really grosses Sawyer out (Sawyer, like Stegosaurus, is an herbivore. He eats mostly salads. Really, really big salads).
Allan’s second-in-command is Cici, a girl with a very prominent nose who is heavily involved in the school swim team. She is based on Ceratosaurus, another carnivore from the late Jurassic that had a large horn over its nose (its name means “horned lizard”) and which may have hunted in the water.
The third member of the bully trio, Parker, is a very skinny kid with a long, oval-shaped face. He wears an “Angry Bird” tee-shirt that is too big for him and when he stretches out his long, stick-like arms, he resembles a pterodactyl. If you want to get technical, Pterodactylus is not a dinosaur (it’s a pterosaur --- a flying reptile). But it was a carnivorous creature that lived at the same time as Stegosaurus. And who’s to say they never got in each other’s way?
Being bad guys, the bullies did not make the cover of the book. The cover (illustrated by the uber-talented Marek Jagucki) features Sawyer (of course) and Sawyer’s two best friends: Elliot (the one holding the basketball) and Sylvie (the one hiding under the orange hoodie). I can’t wait for you to meet them, and the rest of the characters in the book, when DINOSAUR BOY comes out in February, 2015.
Cory Putman Oakes is a children’s book author from Austin, Texas. In addition to DINOSAUR BOY (her middle grade debut), she is also the author of a young adult book THE VEIL. She can be found online at her website, Twitter and Facebook pages.
