Weet

Kelly L. Green is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual’s
Children’s Literature edition.

In this original time-travel fantasy, 12-year-old prehistory expert Eric
and his younger sister Rose are swept into the late Cretaceous period
when they follow their dog into a hole in a hoodoo while exploring in
southern Alberta’s badlands. Finding themselves the largest mammals in
the world, 65 million years before they are to be born, the children
discover that our beliefs about that world are both right and wrong. In
addition to the hadrosaurs and pterosaurs they would have expected to
see, they find that velociraptors have brightly colored feathers, and
even T-rex looks amazingly birdlike. They even discover humanlike
creatures that have evolved from the dinosaurs, and that are intelligent
enough to learn to communicate with them in an amazingly short time.
Climatic changes are already creating a sense of unease among the
intelligent animals, but only Eric has any real understanding of what is
coming down the pike for his new friends and all life on earth.

John Wilson has created an entirely believable world, complete with
lush vegetation, unusual yet familiar fruit, and the exotic animal life
we expect of the time of the dinosaurs. The twist he throws in with Weet
and his intelligent family makes the book a true page-turner. Wilson
writes in clear, complex sentences with advanced vocabulary that does
not condescend to young readers; the story is so compelling there is no
danger they won’t continue reading. Highly recommended.