If you have that one elementary reader who lives and breathes dinosaurs, but it is poetry month at school, Last Laughs: Prehistoric Epitaphs just might be the book for them.

The rhythm and rhyme of these short epitaphs (twenty-one entries) give whimsical tales from creatures of the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Eras. The epitaphs would not be nearly as enjoyable without the silly illustrations by Jeffrey Stewart Timmons.

There are facts about the prehistoric creature beneath each epitaph because the epitaph itself is not factual. I doubt any of the young readers will have any idea of whom the comic paleontologist Prof. M. Piltman, illustrated throughout the book, references dealing with the anthropological hoax of a “human skull” known as the Piltman Man.

The far left and right margins of each page turn provide the scientific Era and Period for each prehistoric creature being written about on that page.