If I Had a Dinosaur

Product Information

At the end of a day spent busily imagining, the girl trudges up to bed with her little plastic dinosaur. The book encourages active participation from children, with many key nouns replaced by an image causing children to fill in the blanks for themselves. Furthermore, what I especially liked was the incorporation of the protagonist as a BAME character, interestingly in a 'normal' setting and not used to highlight differences or discrimination. A little girl wishes ever so desperately that she could have a pet, but she's unsure about what kind of pet she would like.

This book has a lot of opportunities for dialogic reading as the first page opens up with a few pictures in place of words to further engage the kids in the story, and it provides opportunity to engage in the imagination as you can wonder what it'd be like to have a dino for a pet. This book would obviously be fantastic in a classroom as a spring board for lessons on pets/dinosaurs but also has some good linkage opportunities with self care, daily routines, nursery rhymes, creative problem solving and more - I think it would be a brilliant resource for any educator to have on their shelf! He giggles his way through the pages and always wants to know which dinosaur on the last page was the one responsible for the big surprise (no spoilers) earlier in the story. It is all about a little girls who really wants a pet but is having to consider the problem and responsibilities it comes with. Note: A copy of this book was provided to The Baby Bookworm by the author in exchange for an honest review.The bright, joyful pictures made me happy except for in the instances they made me question the illustrator's ability to draw. They have not just yellow but light green skin, and slanted slit eyes where all other children’s eyes are round. But as they walk around the museum, all Dave wants to know is wherther these dinosaurs are really dead. I really enjoy these "if I had a [blank]" books, and I ESPECIALLY like that my top three (this one, If I Had a Raptor, and If I Had a Gryphon) have little girls of color dreaming of non-traditional pets. It's a real shame because otherwise this book is fun -- pretty good rhyming and big, bold illustrations of a huge green dinosaur.

I was really surprised to come to GoodReads and see the negative ratings, and was horrified that I hadn't noticed the racist illustrations, but it appears my copy has been updated - thank goodness! Dogs are nice, she already has a cat, but the girl who narrates the story is looking for a different kind of pet.

I just loved the look on the cat's face when that landed next to it), and many more other fun things. Which made it even funnier that it still fitted in the living room on the couch while she was thinking about it.