Baby Dinosaurs (Follow the Trail) by DK
| Baby Dinosaurs (Follow the Trail) by DK | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sam Tyler
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| Summary: Help pre-readers learn more about dinosaurs and shapes, not only by reading, but touch too. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 14 | Date: February 2017 |
| Publisher: DK Children | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9780241273128 | |
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If you ever have the misfortune to stumble across some as yet undiscovered dinosaur I offer this piece of advice; don't take your finger and track their spine, don't put it in their mouth and don't go following them to their parent. Instead, run. Run faster than you have ever run before in the opposite direction. The unfortunate thing is that anyone with a toddler knows, they love to grab and poke anything – including terrible lizards if they got the chance. Better play safe than sorry and just get them a book that allows them to get their dinosaur touching thrills vicariously.
Reading to a baby/toddler is an awesome way of helping them develop; they get taught what things look like, how they sound to say and in context. At some point your child will start to poke and prod the book looking for textures, this is great when you are reading about that 'not being your badger', but not great for Beatrix Potter. It is nice to have something like Baby Dinosaurs at hand when your child is in a particularly hands on mood.
Baby Dinosaurs covers several baby dinosaurs and you are tasked with helping them find their parent. You achieve this by following the textured trail that leads from the infant to adult. On the way you will experience shapes as you curve around them and also pick up a few facts about the dinosaur you can see.
This book is part of a series by DK Children called Follow the Trail that covers a variety of topics from vehicles, to animals, to dinosaurs. The fact that it is baby dinosaurs and not adult dinosaurs means that the book should not really work. A tractor is a tractor, no matter what, but in this book DK have used a little artistic licence to make the small dinos cute. At first glance the overly large eyes of the cutesy dinosaurs is off putting, but it appeals to the right audience.
For a child, the welcoming faces of the extinct creatures means they are approachable and not scary. Even the spiky and toothsome have a certain sweetness. DK have produced a book designed for a child, in look and feel. Trail books are not new, but this is a very well made one. The hardback version is very sturdy and each double spread has at least one trail. Rather than being the same exact texture throughout the book, DK have gone a step further and mixed things up with some gaps or ridges.
The factual content is also strong. The book is aimed at the very young so cannot go into huge detail and instead uses the journey of the trail itself to tell a story. Does the dino have spikes or a long neck? For a pre-reader to be able to enjoy non-fiction is rare and DK have done a good job here by making the learning so simple. In the case of animals or vehicles the series some close to a must buy. Baby Dinosaurs only falls down a little because of the art choice of making them big eyed cute monsters; that feels a little disingenuous.
There are some great educational books for children about dinosaurs from the very young Robert Crowther's Pop up Dinosaur Alphabet by Robert Crowther, to the older child Excavate! Dinosaurs: Paper Toy Paleontology by Jonathan Tennant, Vladamir Nikolov and Charlie Simpson.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Baby Dinosaurs (Follow the Trail) by DK at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Baby Dinosaurs (Follow the Trail) by DK at Amazon.com.
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