By Tom Fletcher
A boy who's crazy about dinosaurs meets a real one at the North Pole on Christmas Eve, and then has to keep a Hunter from carrying it off.
William Trundle loves dinosaurs more than anything else in the world. The trouble is they've been extinct for millions of years — except, it turns out, one of them isn't. Far away at the North Pole, Santa's elves hatch an egg that's been frozen since before the dinosaurs died out, and out climbs the Christmasaurus. On Christmas Eve a mix-up on Santa's sleigh lands William and the dinosaur together, and it brings the Hunter down on them too: a cold man who has spent his whole life set on catching the one creature nobody else can. From there it's a chase and a rescue across Christmas night, and a wish that comes true, though not in the way William had in mind.
Hand this to a dinosaur-obsessed child who's decided reading isn't for them. It's big and festive and fast, with pictures on what feels like every other page, so the page count never gets a chance to look scary. William is easy to root for: he uses a wheelchair, he misses his mom, a girl at school picks on him, and he's the brave, quick-thinking center of the whole adventure. There's a proper villain to root against, the chapters are short, and if it lands there's more of the series waiting.