Big Book of Aussie Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs are just one of those topics that immediately capture a child’s interest. Large scary creatures (that can also looked friendly according to an artists depiction) certainly encourage imagination and curiosity. Scholastic sent the Big Book of Aussie Dinosaurs by Kel Richards and illustrated by Glen Singleton to review. My immediate reaction was one of delight, because I love that it is Australian.

Excuse my little models bed hair. Is any other mother of boys regularly guilty of not combing her kids hair?

My grandparents used to live in Hughenden, close to where the Muttaburrasaurus was found, so I was well aware of that dinosaur, but when I was reading this book to the kids, I was surprised just how many Aussie dinosaurs there were! We visited my grandfather in Hughenden when Jonty was very still a baby. The kids, especially my nephew who is older than Jonty, especially loved visiting the dinosaur museum there. After I read the book, I kind of wished my grandfather still lived there so we would have a convenient excuse to visit it again. I’m sure we will get there again someday, but not in the foreseeable future! You kind of need a reason to travel the many hours to outback Queensland.

My Grandfather with my niece and nephew and Muttaburrasaurus in 2007 – the kids look so small!

Trent has been learning about dinosaurs at Kindy, so when I mentioned this book to his teacher, she was immediately excited, so Trent brought it in to share with his Kindy friends. (I have a feeling it’s going to be on the teacher’s list to obtain a Kindy copy for next year’s class.) When he brought it home he said that his friends loved it because it had lots of funny pictures in it. Well done Glen Singleton – your vibrant illustrations are certainly loveable! In particular Trent told me that they laughed very loudly for a long time (see below) where a plant eater was squirting tomato sauce. I got him to pose with that picture and he said to say in my blog (so I will quote directly), “They likeded the piece when he put tomato sauce on. They laugheded.” (I’m trying my best to get him to drop the double “d” sound at the end of words, although I’m tempted not to. It’s so cute.

The favourite page.

I’m sure they learned a lot about dinosaurs as well as enjoying the illustrations. There are loads of pictures and facts on every page – and even a pronunciation guide to help kids say all those tricky dino names! They can find out which Aussie dinosaur was the biggest, or the fastest, or the hungriest – and everything else you never knew about the dinosaurs that roamed down under! There is even an Aussie Dinosaur Gallery at the end of the book!

If you have kids who loves dinosaurs, I’m pretty sure this is a book they will adore.

So, have you or your kids heard of the Muttaburrasaurus?