From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6 Jacob Two-Two, the hero of Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang (Knopf, 1975; o.p.), reappears in this tall tale about a small boy and a friendly dinosaur who struggle against incompetent government bureaucrats. Feeling lonely, he is delighted when Dad illegally brings home a lizard from a trip to Kenya. Before long, he realizes that Dippy is in fact a talking diplodocus who was jolted out of hibernation during an earthquake. When the incompetent Prime Minister and his apple-polishing advisors learn about Dippy, they declare him a menace to the public safety and make plans to destroy him. Jacob and Dippy then take off for British Columbia to hide in the wilderness. As in the previous book, the adults are stupid, greedy, racist, violent, and they hate children. Although the humor is not to everyone's taste, young middle-school readers who like a tall tale and satirical humor will enjoy this fast-paced adventure story. They will applaud when Jacob and Dippy outwit the inept bureaucrats. The story and its style of humor might also interest some older and reluctant readers. However, Butterworth's The Enormous Egg (Dell, 1978) is funnier and a far better story about the perils of keeping a pet dinosaur. Virginia Golodetz, St. Michael's College, Winooski, Vt.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
[Editor's Note: The following is a combined review with JACOB TWO-TWO MEETS THE HOODED FANG.]--The great Canadian author--best known for THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ and JOSHUA THEN AND NOW--penned three juvenile novels featuring a neglected 6-year-old who says everything twice. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has done a marvelous job producing full-cast dramatizations of the first two of these novels. Narrated by Stephanie Morganstern, and featuring Jacob Daniel Tierney as Jacob, JACOB TWO-TWO AND THE DINOSAUR follows Jacob as he befriends a pet diplodocus (played by Vlasta Vrana) whom he must protect from the violent abuses of adult society. The story is simultaneously funny and touching, and always offbeat. In JACOB TWO-TWO MEETS THE HOODED FANG, the stammering 6-year-old is sent to prison at Slimer's Isle, ruled over by an evil pro-wrestler, the Hooded Fang. The story is simultaneously funny and touching, and always offbeat. These CBC productions, filled with music, sound effects, and dozens of voices, are top-top-notch. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
??a fable cunningly designed to delight children and parents alike?a split-level fantasy that taps an ageless sense of insolence.?
?Maclean's

ANNOTATION

When Jacob Two-Two's father brings him back a small lizard from Kenya, it grows to enormous proportions, and to protect his now identifiable Diplodocus from frightened grown-ups, Jacob runs away with him to British Columbia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When his parents return from Kenya with a cute little green lizard on his eighth birthday (he’s two times two times two), Jacob Two-Two is thrilled. But it isn’t long before Jacob realizes that his new pet Dippy isn’t a lizard after all. And as months pass, it is apparent Dippy isn’t so little either. Soon Dippy is attracting all sorts of unwanted attention and before he knows it, Jacob is on the run from the Canadian government with a full-grown dinosaur to hide.

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Judy Silverman