How Big Were Dinosaurs

An interesting question for Lita Judge to ask.  As a member at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, I figured I had a pretty good handle on the size of dinosaurs, generally speaking.  Turns out, that, coupled with my knowledge of the movie Jurassic Park still did not give me the appropriate schema to visualize the size of dinosaurs (both big and small).  But this book, “How Big Were Dinosaurs?” did an excellent job of putting their size (both height and weight) into perspective that would likely also work well for a young child.  This book is well written, incorporating figurative language elements as well as text that bolds the names of the dinosaurs throughout.  The illustrations are humorous but also, technically, accurate.  The ones that surprised me more were how small they were, not how large.  The protoceratops being the size of a baby rhino seemed surprising to me.  The velociraptor was downright shocking to me.  I saw Jurassic Park.  That special effects dinosaur was not the size of a golden retriever.  And yet. 

I know with certainty that this book will have kid-appeal in my library.  In addition to our second grade curricular study of dinosaurs, we have some dinosaur fiends at my school who will snatch this book off the shelf. 

All that said, my only concern is the lack of source material that I would consider highly reliable.  The content needed (size of the dinosaurs) should not be hard to find in plentiful and countless sources.  The fact that Enchanted Learning is one of two websites listed as resources is troubling to me.  I don’t think the information would be unreliable, per se, but I think there are better sources out there from many a reliable organization dedicated to the study of dinosaurs.

How Big Were Dinosaurs

ISBN: 978-1-59643-719-7

Published 2013 by Roaring Brook Press

I borrowed this copy from my public library to read and review.