Many months ago, we found a series of books called “Henry and the Dinosaurs”. It’s about a boy who has a bucket full of plastic dinosaur figurines that come to life. Soon after we checked out the book, Sam and I visited a park where he found 2 plastic dinosaur figurines like the ones in the book. It was the wrong choice, but we decided to “adopt” the abandoned dinosaurs. (I still imagine some poor child going back to the park searching for his lost dinosaurs and crying his eyes out because they are gone). Sam was so excited about his find that it was hard not to take them. He came home and ran to the spot where his bucketfull of rocks sat. He unloaded the bucket right away, put his new dinosaurs into the bucket, and asked to read the Henry book.
In the summer, we found 2 other books in the series. One of them was about Henry’s first day at school, and the other was about Henry’s visit to the dentist. In the dentist book, Henry is scared of the dentist. He doesn’t want to get in the chair, so he puts his T-Rex in the chair instead. While the poor dentist’s back is turned, the T-Rex comes to life with a big roar, scaring the dentist half to death. That makes Henry much more comfortable, and he submits to an exam.
We returned the book long ago, but Sam remembered it last week when Dave told him that he (Dave) had a dental appointment. Sam asked if it was like the Henry book and then told Dave that he could take Sam’s bucket of dinosaurs with him to the dentist.