Here’s this week’s entry for KidLitFrenzy‘s Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesdays.
Title: How Big Were Dinosaurs?
Author / Illustrator: Lita Judge
Publisher: Roaring Book Press
Publication Date: 2013
Genre/Format: Nonfiction/Picture Book
Publisher’s Summary: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a Velociraptor for a walk, or try to brush a Tyrannosaur’s teeth? We think of dinosaurs as colossal giants, but how big were they REALLY?
With kid-friendly text and seriously silly illustrations, this fact-filled book puts dinosaurs next to modern animals so that you can see exactly how they size up. And a huge fold-out chart compares the dinos to each other, from the tiniest Microraptor to Argentinosaurus, the largest animal to ever walk the land.
An NPR Best Book of 2013
My Two Cents: Dinosaurs! Who doesn’t love dinosaurs? Nobody, that’s who! How Big Were Dinosaurs? is a delightful nonfiction picture book that really brings dinosaurs to life. What makes this picture book so awesome is the way it not only includes less common dinosaurs, such as leaellynasaura, but also uses modern-day equivalents to help children visualize the true size of these creatures. For example, leaellynasaura are pictured with a flock of penguins, while the famous velociraptor is shown beside a dog, to illustrate their actual size (note that the actual velociraptor was much smaller than the fictionalized velociraptors in Jurassic Park, which were actually closer in size to the larger utahraptor. Did I mention I’m still a bit of a dinosaur nut?) Author/illustrator/fellow dinosaur lover Lita Judge provides facts and figures with a smile and a sense of humour, creating an informational picture book that is sure to fascinate young readers. Highly recommended (and not just because I love dinosaurs….)!
I just read a cute picture board book called DinoBlock. Liked how they included a pronunciation guide and compared certain features to modern day animals to give readers an idea of what they were like.
Exactly! As a kid I used to struggle when books said that a given dinosaur was 15 feet tall – those numbers meant nothing to me. What I needed was a visual to help me really appreciate the scale of these guys!
I’ve seen this reviewed, but still haven’t read it. You made me want to “see” it with your review. Thanks!
I own two of Judge’s titles about dinosaurs. I think this one is brilliant. She really makes it clear to kids just how big or small these dinos really were.
I liked this version – it seems like many dinosaur books are redundant but this one was fun!
This is a nice one – it has a good blend of information and fun 🙂