I DID SEE A MAMMOTH!

Santa delivers a naughty boy his comeuppance in this yuck- and yuk-filled Christmas book.

Santa is appalled at the length of greedy Danny’s list—especially since the lad already has a “mountain of toys.” Santa decides, “I’ll leave him a present, / But this year his present might just be unpleasant.” After hearing a clatter, Danny rushes to see a “GIGANTIC egg” dwarfing the Christmas tree. It promptly hatches a dinosaur that sets to devouring everything, and everyone, in sight. Danny watches, horrified, as it eats his grandmother, his parents, and their whole house. The comical, rhyming text’s tone is light and is supported by the cartoon digital art, which shows a rotund, house-sized dinosaur on the former site of Danny’s home. Bereft, the boy realizes “it wasn’t the house or the presents he missed; / Without family, Christmas just didn’t exist.” Lucky for him, though perhaps not for squeamish readers, the dinosaur’s overindulgence leads to two spreads of voluminous defecation, with Danny’s family, the house’s contents, Santa and reindeer, and more all sailing “from the dinosaur’s butt” on a “massive WHOOOOOOSH” of liquid, brown poop. All characters are unscathed, and cleanup happens mercifully quickly, though readers may feel a bit ill at the sight of piles and rivulets of poop still decking the halls. Santa, Danny, and his family all present white.

Safe to say it’s the only dinosaur-poop–themed Christmas book readers will ever need.

(Picture book. 4-8)