Noah has missed the first semester of middle school, while he and his anxious parents wait for signs his leukemia is in remission. On a night he can't sleep, he spies an unusual procession when he looks out his window: A T-rex pulling a wagon full of toys. Are his eyes decieving him?
When he shares this news with his best friend, Jerad, he worries that Jerad will think he's making it all up. But Jerad remembers the T-rex, named Crusher, that used to stand in the local toy store. The store had to close and the owner retired, but could some toys, even Crusher, have been left behind? Jerad visits the shuttered store and reports back that Crusher is indeed gone. And then, the search begins.
Told from the points of view of Noah, a kid who wants to put illness behind him, and Crusher, a mechanical T-rex with a gentle heart who wants to find homes for the toys left behind, Last Night at the Carnival Graveyard is part mystery, part adventure, and all soul.