Customer Reviews

Big Book of Dinosaurs

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just like dinosaurs themselves, this book is BIG -- big type, big format, big pictures. The kids will love it. What preschooler doesn't love dinosaurs? One trip to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City had my son, at age three and a half, talking a blue streak about stegosauruses, elasmosauruses, tyrannosauruses, and Heaven knows what else. "The Big Book of Dinosaurs" is organized into categories such as meat-eaters, boneheads (pachycephalosaurus and his ilk) and gargantuans such as brontosaurus. The double-page spreads with gorgeously illustrated dinosaurs are sure to hold a child's attention, and the text is succint and easy for them to understand. It's a great read-aloud book for the preschool to first grade set. There's a very good index at the end of the book with proper pronunciations of all the dinosaur names that will have your preschool paleontologist rattling them off like a pro. Highly recommended for all children between three and six.

This is a beautifully illustrated book with lots of great pictures. The pages include lots of facts about dinosaurs and show pictures of both very live looking dino's as well as their skeletons. It is a good book to continue a child's interest in the subject. The end of the book includes a index with name pronunciations (very handy!). Some of the pictures are a little "too realistic" for the younger set. All in all, a great starter book for my 5 year old's interest in dinosaurs.

Ordered this book not knowing exactly what to expect, just went by the description offered. I was very pleased when I received it. As it was a gift for my 10 year old grandson who is a dinosaur nut, it was in large enough print, very clearly labeled the different dinosaurs and had wonderful pictures of each species. I was surprised at the overall size of the book as it's dimensions are quite large. I am so happy that I took a chance and ordered it and my grandson was thrilled!

...very young kids, it's interesting for older kids, too. I found this book nice and neat with lots of pictures. I wondered how DK produced such photo-realistic for a long time till I found out - they used models. I highly recomend this for young children especially!

We gave this book to our son in September for his third birthday! It is his absolute favorite book. He was already an avid "reader" but this book is the best. He was only interested in trains and construction vehicles before the introduction of this book. It has wonderful pictures so he can "read" on his own. There is LOTS of dinosaur detaild for us to read to him. He seems hungry to learn more about the dinosaurs and there is always more to learn in here. He recently brought it to show and tell at school as his favorite item! If you have a budding discoverer, this book is for you. It has become one of my standard gifts for little boys.

This book is well written, well organized and full of nice pictures and interesting details on dinosaurs.

The thing to make sure you are aware of it that it deals strictly with "dinosaurs". Pteradons (the flying reptiles like pteradactyls, etc.) and the "swimming dinosaurs" - icthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pliosaurs (who are actually swimming reptiles)are not represented in the book.

It is a well done book, but if you have a child like mine who is into the flying and swimming reptiles from that era, you will need a different book, since it is out of the scope of this one.

I bought this book for my 4 year old... he collects every book we find about dinosaurs. He loved it. He takes it with him everywhere and it is the front book in his Dino-library.

It is a bit thin, but the pictures are great and have really inspired him. I highly recomend it.

Disappointed with the length; this is a tall but thin book. Based on research, I thought this would be different than the many other dinosaur books my 4-yr. old has, but same information presented in a slightly different manner. Child was visibly disappointed on Christmas but sweetly said: "Mommy I love it" even though scarce information was new. I will go to Borders where I can sit and look through the offerings before I buy a replacement. For someone with a dino-crazy child who memorizes odd and obscure facts about each type of creature from each age (which describes a lot of 4-yr. olds) this is not the book. It's perhaps a good starter - albeit slim - book, as the pictures are quite good and some of the dinos are not your run of the mill names. If you have a dino-nut on your hands, look for something with more heft.

I'll agree with all the positive points made in the two "Most Helpful" 2004 reviews here, such as:
- "[It] is organized into categories such as meat-eaters, boneheads (pachycephalosaurus and his ilk) and gargantuans such as brontosaurus."
- "The double-page spreads with gorgeously illustrated dinosaurs are sure to hold a child's attention, and the text is succin[c]t and easy for them to understand."
- "The pages include lots of facts about dinosaurs and show pictures of both very live looking dino's as well as their skeletons."
- "There's a very good index at the end of the book with proper pronunciations of all the dinosaur names...."

But to these points let me add the following cautions:
- Despite this book's subtitle, the reading level of the text, the realism of the photos of dinosaur models, and the normal paper make it unsuitable as a "First [Nonfiction] Book for Young Children." Instead, for your 2-3 year old consider a book with minimal text and cartoon-style illustrations that is printed on card stock such as The Usborne Big Book of Big Dinosaurs.
- For the most part, the dinosaurs are not shown doing activities such as eating, walking, and fighting. I wish more of the 32 pages were devoted to theoretical reconstructions of how they actually lived in their environments, perhaps by cutting back a little on the number of different dinosaurs pictured (which is more than 50).
- Since the book was published in 1994, some of the information is out of date. For example, the "Biggest on Earth" spread does not include Argentinosaurus which was discovered in the early 1990s and as of 2010 is the heaviest land animal discovered for which a decent amount of evidence is available. The book says that "Tyrannosaurus was the biggest... meat-eating animal ever," but these days the largest specimen of T. rex is considered smaller than the largest specimens of carnivores Giganotosaurus, Mapusaurus, and Spinosaurus.

Nevertheless, buy this book from Amazon.com!

this book is great for little dino lovers. My 3yr old daughter loves this book and uses it as a reference guide, whenever she sees a dino on tv or some where, she pulls it out to find the name of the dino she saw. The illustrations are great and it gives good little facts for kids to learn about the dino's. The only thing I don't like about this book is that the pronunciations of the dino names are in the back of the book instead of with the pictures of the dino's.