GEORGE O'CONNOR
GEORGE O'CONNOR is the creator of several children’s books, including the New York Times best-selling Olympians series, retellings of Greek myths in comic form. About If I Had a Raptor, he says, “Someone smarter than me once remarked that if your cat was a little bigger and you were a little bit smaller, it would eat you. That comparison informed my dino ization of the house cat in If I Had a Raptor.” George O’Connor lives (with his clawed and clever cat) in Brooklyn.
George O’Connor’s Online Sketchbook
IF I HAD A TRICERATOPS
Candlewick – February 10, 2015
With deft visual humor, a New York Times best-selling author-illustrator imagines how awesome it would be to have a pet triceratops living in your backyard.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a triceratops for a pet? If you had one, it would probably be your best friend. It would always want to play with you, and it would always know how you’re feeling. On dark and stormy nights, if your triceratops got scared, you could let it sleep in your room. True, a triceratops is a little on the huge side, but that just means more pet to love, and more pet to love you right back! Just imagine your very own pet triceratops running out to greet you at the end of the day. Ooof! Wouldn’t that be the best thing ever?
IF I HAD A RAPTOR
Candlewick – May 13, 2014
A spunky and imaginative little girl dreams of the best pet ever — a fuzzy baby raptor to snuggle.
Our heroine can’t think of anything better than bringing home a baby raptor — all teensy and tiny, fluffy and funny. It would cuddle and play, stalk birds and dust bunnies, and curl up on laps. In short, it would be the perfect pet! Readers may notice striking similarities between the raptor’s behavior and that of a more common house pet. But whether their first love is dinosaurs or kittens, little people with big imaginations will definitely warm to this perfect picture book.