If I Had a Dinosaur

Product Information

But as they walk around the museum, all Dave wants to know is wherther these dinosaurs are really dead.

As regular readers know, JJ is a fan of dinosaurs – you may have even noticed her loyal reading buddy, Mr. Looking again at this book, I'm reminded of the Cousin Chin-Kee character from American Born Chinese. Note: A copy of this book was provided to The Baby Bookworm by the author in exchange for an honest review.

I happened to check the goodreads reviews after I read the story, and someone mentioned the illustrations for the Asian characters. This little kid also wants a dinosaur after going through a list of other pets that just weren't good enough. And she’s totally up to caring for it: she would feed it lots of leafy greens and dig it a nice pond to swim in, even brush its teeth.

This book has a lot of opportunities for dialogic reading as the first page opens up with a few pictures in place of words to further engage the kids in the story, and it provides opportunity to engage in the imagination as you can wonder what it'd be like to have a dino for a pet. As another reviewer pointed out, this book is great except for the three small illustrations of Asian children that are unsettling.Also, only the yellow children have eyes that are slanted lines instead of the round dots sported by all the other people in the story. Taking inspiration from one of David Attenborough's BBC documentaries, Dawnay uses rhyme, humour and the excitement of having a very strange pet to create this picturebook. Wonderfully characterised and atmospheric illustrations complement humorous rhyming text in a story that will appeal to young dinosaur-lovers. It would need lots of food to eat, a swimming pool to drink from, and a dino flap so it could come and go! She's a little black girl and she loves dinosaurs because, yes, kids who are not male and who are not white also like dinosaurs.