Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo

The Lazardo family has brought back a peculiar souvenir from their trip to Africa...a dinosaur! Ah, but Bob is the friendly sort of dinosaur. The kind who enjoys playing the trumpet and tossing around a baseball. Bob is an instant neighborhood hit... until his love of chasing cars with his dog pals stirs up trouble with the police for "disturbing the peace." But it's the Pimlico Pirates' opening game and Bob's love of baseball might just be his get-out-of-jail-free card...

The Lazardo family has brought back a peculiar souvenir from their trip to Africa…a dinosaur! Ah, but Bob is the friendly sort of dinosaur. The kind who enjoys playing the trumpet and tossing around a baseball. Bob is an instant neighborhood hit…until his love of chasing cars with his dog pals stirs up trouble with the police for “disturbing the peace.” But it’s the Pimlico Pirates’ opening game and Bob’s love of baseball might just be his get-out-of-jail-free card…

In an article entitled "Back to the Future: Retro picture books — déjà vu all over again?," published in the January/February 2010 edition of The Horn Book Magazine, children's literature scholar Leonard S. Marcus identified a number of examples of the genre that were tapping into and reviving older aesthetic styles, from the "Constructivist" (Night Becomes Day, The Police Cloud), to the "Art Deco." This sweetly silly little storytelling confection from William Joyce, in which an American family on safari in Africa encounters a massive dinosaur, whom they adopt, name Bob, and bring home with them, is described by Marcus as an early example of the revival of this second style, with its "streamlined, assertively modern" show more sensibility.

Although Joyce is a picture-book creator I had long been aware of, I don't know that I'd ever felt particularly motivated to pick up any of his books before Marcus' article piqued my curiosity. I'm glad that I finally have, as I found Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo an entertaining tale, and appreciated the vintage, 1920s look of the illustrations. I don't know that the words "Art Deco" would have leapt to my mind, without Marcus' commentary, but I definitely would have noticed that the setting and visual "feeling" of the book were historical, rather than contemporary. All in all, a most engaging tale, one that young dinosaur lovers and baseball players, in particular, will enjoy. show less

Great fun--gargantuan souvenir-turned-pet Bob comes in incredibly handy in all sorts of situations. Best part? The song at the end the little daughter composes to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne": "He's Mesozoic and heroic, and we love him soooo!"

Dinosaur Bob is found by the Lazardo family while vacationing in the Africa Safari. They came to love him and took him with them on some great adventures with the final stop being home. Bob then has many adventures while in the city. A great book for a young readers mind.

As a reader I liked the book. I liked the different places that they traveled and how they traveled there. It was a fun book just for having a dinosaur in present times. You start to think about what you would do with a dinosaur if you had one today.

As a teacher I could use this book to tap into my students’ imagination. What would they do if they had a dinosaur, where would they keep it, and what would they feed it. I could also have them write a story about what show more animal, if they could have any as a pet, would they have and why. show less

The Lazardos are not your typical family. So it follows that they require no typical pet. Enter Bob. They find him on safari in Africa and decide that he needs a good home. I love this story of a baseball playing dinosaur and the free-spirited family who take him in. By the writer of George Shrinks. The families are very similar in spirit. Such a great book!

What else is the Lazardo family to do with a dinosaur they find during their safari trip? Keep him, of course. Bob loves city life, but sadly, the city life doesn't love him. He finds solace by becoming one of the best baseball players Pimlico Hills has ever had.