A Dinosaur A Day

Miranda Smith

Jenny Wren et al

Farshore, 2022

234pp., hbk., RRP $A29.99

9780755501793

Triceratops, brontosaurus, stegosaurus and of course, tyrannosaurus rex – all names that the youngest child will tell you if you ask them to name some dinosaurs.  But what if they could explore a new dinosaur for every day of the year, and still just be touching on the diversity of these fascinating creatures that roamed the planet for more than 160 million years?

This new collection about these creatures that continue to build wonder and wonderment, is more than your usual anthology because it offers the young reader an introduction to a new dinosaur every day of the year, including important information about the time period it existed, where it lived, who its relatives were, what it ate and the usual weight and length.  With each month organised by categories such as size, diet, speed, weaponry and so on, it offers many new names to spruik and readers will have fun discovering which one is featured on their own birthday – I share mine with Qantassaurus (named after the airline) a speedy, two metre biped of the early Cretaceous period that dined on the plants of the Flat Rocks fossil site near Inverloch (Strzelecki Ranges) on the southern Victorian coast about 150 km south-east of Melbourne (co-incidentally one of my favourite spots in Australia!). And just like the readers of this book will be, I was inspired to find out more , increasing both my knowledge and my reading skills.  My husband, on the other hand, is associated with the masiakasaurus of Africa… 

So as well as expanding the child’s knowledge of these creatures which includes explanations of how they came to be and why they disappeared, it is easy to see how this is one of those books that will lead to further and deeper reading making it a most valuable addition to the section of the collection that never loses its appeal.