Customer Reviews

Detective Dinosaur: An I Can Read Book

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a great first chapter book for children. In each chapter, the main character, Detective Dinosaur, solves a mystery. The mysteries are often silly, but they are always fun to read. For example, in one chapter, Detective Dinosaur is looking for his hat, and it turns out it has been on his head all along! In another, he goes to see the doctor because he is sick, but the doctor is not anywhere to be found. So that is the mystery. It turns out that the doctor is home in bed because he is sick too! My son, 5, read this book to me (a chapter a night) and laughed out loud at least once per chapter. This book is good, clean fun and perfect for K-2 readers.

My 4 year old son insists that I read Detective Dinosaur to him over and over. He picks out new words each time we read the story. We practice using different accents (Bogart, Karloff) to make the characters come alive. Sometimes, we have to read the book a few times (and there are three stories) before he drifts off to sleep, but its worth it to find a book that a boy loves.

This is one of those books that is a bit silly (Picture Inspector Clouseau as a dinosaur talking to second graders), but at the same time also teaches in a mellow and fun way. This is a collection of three "detective stories" featuring Officer Pterodactyle, Chief Tyrannosaurus and Deputy Diplodocus. The setting is probably London at the turn of the century.

The three cases which must be solved are:

The case of the missing hat.
The case of the squeaking shoe
Night Patrol

We have three rather silly dinosaur police officers...again I am put in the mind of either Inspector Clouseau with a mixture of the Keystone Cops...trying to solve some pretty silly cases. As has been pointed out, the jokes here are pretty well worn, but for fresh ears they are quite cute and funny.

Now children of this age probably already know more dinosaur names than you or me, but the author has done a wonderful job of providing a pronunciation guide which is a no miss guide, and a good spelling guide. The kids seem to delight in pronouncing these names and that is one of the strengths of this work.

The illustrations are cute, funny and skillfully executed with plenty of mellow color. While the situations our not so able officers encounter are pretty obvious, they never the less tickle the funny bone of most children and will bring a smile or smirk to the most jaded of adult readers. The details in the illustrations are quite detailed, not only of the officers, but also the background and clothing.

Now this is not a work that I would necessarily put at the top of my "to purchase list" but it is certainly one that is worth checking out from the local library, or if available, purchasing at a nice used book store.

The text is smooth, easy to read and accompanied with the wonderful illustrations the story is well told at a level that a first or second grader can well understand and appreciate. This is also an excellent book to start the transition to chapter books for the little ones.

I like this work and do recommend it.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

My five-year-old son and I love this book. It features 3 short "chapters" that are organized in the great classic format of "detective case" stories. Who can't get excited by that?! The stories are well written, with witty and cute detail, and a silly, but funny, "reveal" in each. My son burst out laughing once in every chapter as he read along. Then he got up after the end of the story and went to find his mom to read her the silly punch-line again. Very sweet and definitely develops the love of words and reading. A gem. Wish I could find more like this.

The number series is great for kids' progression in learning to read. My son loves the story lines.

My six year old grandson really enjoys this book. He LOVES dinosaurs and mysteries so this book is a perfect fit for his reading library.

I bought this for my son to get him excited about reading - he is in 1st grade and just started reading but needed some more incentive to spend the time practicing so he could improve. I really liked Detective Dinosaur. My son enjoyed reading it - he found it clever and funny and loved the characters. I plan on getting other books in this series for him.

My son is enjoying learning to read and loves dinosaurs, so this is a great book for him. It provides familiar words and new words to read.

This story has 3 chapters, so readers have very clear story breaks. The chapters increased the understanding of the students. The pictures help the children figure out what the story is about. The humor is a bit advanced for the kids, but the pictures make them laugh. The book is fun for adults to read because of the humor.

Not too fair of me to rate this since i got it for my 7 year old. He's in 1st grade (going into 2nd in a few months) and it was too easy for him. He's a good reader though, so i won't be purchasing any level 2 books for him seeing how easy this was. No time at all and it was read.