Dinosaur Police product reviews

Mr 5 picked this book up and he thought that the book would be funny. He thought that the dinosaur might eat all the other characters in the book and of course that would entertain and goofy 5 year old! The illustrations are cute cartoon type pictures. Each page had lots to look and enjoy. Both of our children enjoyed spending some time to look at the various elements of each page. The kids like the sounds that the dinosaurs made and joined in many of the sounds to go with the story. "RAWRRR".

My husband found that the illustrations were actually a bit busy but the children loved them - and that is what counts really. If kids love a book, then it is a winner. I thought that the illustrations told a story all by themselves and were perfect for both children to browse through by themselves when I didn't have time to sit down a read to them. There is plenty to look at on each page. The simple white circular eyes with black dots in them for each character stood out on the page. I liked how a change in the placement of that black dot gave a different effect for each character - change in the direction they were looking, thoughtfulness, inquisitiveness etc.

I thought that the names of the dinosaurs in the book were quite humorous and enjoyable for adults as well as children. Examples of these are Sarah Tops and Stig O'Saurus. I love it when a kids book offers the adults a big of fun as well.

The storyline is engaging and energetic. It moves through at a good pace, which kept the children interested as I read it to them. Mr 5 loves dinosaurs and enjoys every opportunity to hear a new dinosaur story. This storyline was quite different to what we have read previously about dinosaurs, so it was extra enjoyable for the kids.

We all had a good laugh at the end with the different burps that the dinosaurs gave at the end of the story. Needless to say, this is very humour for young children. They had to give it a go themselves!

This book would certainly be a great gift for any child, in particular, the dinosaur-loving kids in our lives.

I sat down with Miss 3 at bedtime tonight with this book. The first thing we did was look at the front cover of the book. I told her the title of the book and who wrote it. Then I asked her what the cover art had. She pointed to the dinosaurs in the car, and she yelled as she pointed out the loud speaker. I asked her what the dinosaurs might be saying. She thought it might be "Stop!" Then we looked at the T-Rex on the cover, coated in pizza. That seemed to amuse her a lot.

As we were discussing the book's cover, Miss 8 came bounding it. Apparently we sounded like we were having too much fun without her. So she sat next to her sister for the story. I started to read, but for each page we stopped and poured over the pictures. Every page seemed to have hidden things and funny jokes to find. Like when the police are eating donuts towards the start of the story.

When we got to the part with the pizzas, the girls stopped and looked through all the pizzas to see which ones they would like to eat. Miss 3 is going through this thing where she doesn't really like pizza and seems to waste her pizza night dinners. This has been frustrating for us. With this book, she was able to point to each pizza and tell me the things she thought were "yucky" to have on one. I discovered that she really doesn't like many of the pizza toppings we have been setting in front of her. So now I have a better idea of what to feed her next time!

Her big sister pretended to be a T-Rex, complete with tiny arms and mimed eating the pizzas off the page, which then lead to some pretending to be tiny-armed dinosaurs around the room as I was reading. The girls thought that the T-Rex was very naughty for not stopping when the police said to. They liked the different dinosaurs on the force and the ending was a huge hit. Though it made me feel a little ill, it had my girls rolling with laughter and trying it themselves. Another awesome book from Scholastic!