Archive | May 20, 2017

How Many Dinosaurs Deep?

How Many Dinosaurs Deep?

How Many Dinosaurs Deep?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Many Dinosaurs Deep?

Ben Kitchen

Vicky Fieldhouse

New Frontier, 2017

32pp., hbk., RRP $A22.99

9780995625556

Jim is learning how to swim but when it is time to move up from the baby pool to the middle-sized pool, he is not so sure that he is ready.   he’s concerned about its depth so his mother tells him that it would not even reach the knees of a stegosaurus.  This sparks a chain reaction of how deep would a … be and each time mum is able to explain it in terms of how many dinosaurs it would take to reach the surface.  And when she explains the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean would need 587 brachiosauruses standing on each other’s head, Jim finally feels he is ready to cope.

This is a unique story that combines the love of dinosaurs that so many little ones have with their natural apprehension of venturing into something they are unsure of.  Clearly Ben Kitchen has done his homework on  dinosaur dimensions and there are two pages explaining the key features of those that are mentioned, including some that young readers may not be familiar with.  While more or less anatomically correct, the illustrations are still whimsical and fun and readers will gain courage from them rather than fear.  

Something completely different for the younger reader. Perhaps even an opportunity to go outside and measure things to compare them with the dinosaurs to bring the imagination to reality.