e.explore: Dinosaur

Advantages: Stunning images, gripping "story-lines".
Disadvantages: Not suitable for children to read unaided.

...If you didn’t see the TV series Walking With Dinosaurs (on the BBC and Discovery Channel), then you missed out on something really special. It was a natural-history style series that used the latest computer technology to recreate the dinosaurs, superimposing them on stunning landscapes from around the world. This book uses still frames from that series to complement the text – and the visual effect is stunning. But the problem comes when you start looking at the words... I bought Walking With Dinosaurs: A Natural History for my nine year old son after we had watched the series on TV. He’s a good reader for his age, but he still had trouble with some of the text – each chapter is just one long essay with a few summary boxes in between. He finds it easy to flick through and look at the summary boxes –... Read review

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Advantages: Teaches children about differences
Disadvantages: none

...***Background*** This older book in our nursery’s collection is a board book so withstands a lot of wear and tear from youngsters quite well. It is one of a whole series of books about dinosaurs from Henrietta Stickland and helps young children learn all about opposites. ***The Story*** The book starts by showing a big ferocious dinosaur and a tiny one who looks terrified. The words underneath that accompany the pictures tell us, “Dinosaur roar, dinosaur squeak,” Turn the page and there is a little dinosaur scaring a big one with the words, “dinosaur fierce, dinosaur meek.” As we go through the book we see lots of differently coloured and shaped dinosaurs, all with comparisons to go with them. These include, fast and slow, weak and strong and fat and tiny. The book ends with, “All sorts of dinosaurs eating... Read review

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Advantages: Great book that introduces colours through fun and flaps
Disadvantages: none

...***Background*** Harry is a little boy who has a bucketful of toy dinosaurs. They come to life with the help of his imagination and they have wonderful adventures together. They can be regularly seen on Channel 5 in the morning on the children's Milkshake programme. If you want to know more about the TV series then please feel free to read my review of this for further details. Ian Whybrow is the author of the many Harry books out there but is also well known for his Little Wolf stories that have also been made into television programmes. His humour makes these books a joy to read but there are also important social lessons in most of these books too. Adrian Reynolds provides the illustrations for this series of books and has also worked with authors such as Jeanne Willis and Jonathan Emmett. ***The Story*** This story... Read review

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