Title Fight Reading Challenge: I Want That Love…

Today I bring to you my final contribution for the Title Fight Reading Challenge 2016 with a book for category six (a book with an emotion in the title).  I Want That Love is another truly original mashup of dinosaurs and deep-seated human emotion by Japanese master of quirkiness Tatsuya Miyanishi.  If you are struggling to place Miyanishi’s other work, you can check out our review of You Look Yummy here.  We received a copy of this one from the publisher via Netgalley and here’s the blurb from Goodreads:

Although Tyrannosaurus storms around saying that power is everything in the world, he realizes he is getting weaker with age. After his tail gets bitten in a run-in with Masiakasaurus, some young Triceratops nurse him back to health.

Touched by their innocent hearts, Tyrannosaurus begins to feel love for these new friends–even though he might have eaten them under different circumstances!

So when two Giganotosaurus attack the group, Tyrannosaurus fights them off, holding the children tightly to his body, and sacrificing himself in order to protect them from the Giganotosaurus. The third title in this acclaimed series, I Want That Love explains that love is far more important than power. 

Let me begin by saying that Miyanishi’s style of writing will not be for everyone.  Some parents will no doubt pick up this book, have a flick through and decide they would rather drink paint than pass such a weird book on to their kids.  I, having no stony offspring, am able to enjoy the utter bizarre joy of watching a violent, baby-dinosaur-chomping T-Rex realise the power of love through a close encounter with advanced age.  In a nutshell, the story follows a T-Rex, who has a penchant for killing and eating weaker and smaller dinos, until he finds himself in a deathly dire situation.  When he himself is attacked by some stronger dinos, the T-Rex is nursed back to health by some utterly adorable little Triceratops kids.  Later, when the baby Triceratops are threatened, T-Rex provides the ultimate sacrifice to save the kids, thus proving that he has learned his lesson about the power of love trumping (yes, I use that word deliberately) the fallacy that strength and power are the things that matter most in life.

I don’t know if the T-Rex and Triceratops are the same ones as appear in You Look Yummy – they look the same, but there are some continuity difficulties if they are – but this book has that same heart-warming punch at the end that will knock your world-weary heart for six.  Even though these books are utterly weird and unlike any other picture books that you will read – seriously, I still can’t decide whether the author intends these to be dark humour or serious moral tale, or indeed whether the translation has anything to do with how they read – there is an incredibly authentic underlying message in each story.  I have a sneaking suspicion that these are actually meant for adults, but I really can’t be sure.

Odd as these books undoubtedly are, we on the Shelf have definitely fallen under their Prehistoric spell and will keep our eyes peeled for any more in the series.  Mad Martha did intend on hooking up a cuddly T-Rex for you, but she couldn’t fit it in, given the time we had to spend this week looking at each other sideways and whispering “What the actual F***?” over the result of the US election.

Happily though, with this title I have COMPLETED THE TITLE FIGHT READING CHALLENGE FOR 2016!!  Hooray!

For any of you who enjoy my reading challenges, I have been working hard on a new challenge for 2017 and will hopefully have information posted here within the next week or two.

Until next time,

Bruce