Welcome to DiNovember!
It might not actually be November when you read this, but that’s okay! Dinosaurs are cool at ANY time of year. This reading guide is aimed at children aged 6-9 but can be used by kids of any age (even your 99-year-old great-grandmother). On this page we have a range of books and resources, including:
- picture books
- chapter books
- graphic novel
- non-fiction
- joke book
- audio book (actually a video)
There are also some links to other websites about dinosaurs that you might like to visit!
Picture books
Title: Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs
Author: Mo Willems
Format: Picture book
Publication date: 2012
ISBN: 9780062104182
Location: Picture Books
Format: e-video
Publication date: 2015
Location: Kanopy video online
Three dinosaurs are up to no good, and Goldilocks seems blissfully unaware. Will she be a chocolate-filled little girl bonbon? A fun re-imagining of Goldilocks and the Three Bears by the author of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. Watch out for that dinosaur from Norway, see if you can find the Pigeon, and don’t forget to read the titles that weren’t used (hint: they’re on the endpapers)!
Title: How the Dinosaur got to the Museum
Author: Jessie Hartland
Format: Picture book (informational)
Publication date: 2011
ISBN: 9781609050900
Location: Early Learning
After a dinosaur dies and its bones are rediscovered, how does it get to be displayed in a museum? Jessie Hartland worked with real people to research this book, even going on a dinosaur dig and finding real dinosaur bones! Told in the style of This is the House that Jack Built, this book tells us how one Diplodocus gets from the rock beds in Utah to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC (more on them later), highlighting the many people involved – including excavators, palaeontologists, movers, museum curators, preparators, welders, riggers, exhibits team and even cleaners and night watchmen.
Title: Jurassica: A Beginner’s Field Guide
Author: Lance Balchin
Format: Picture book (older readers)
Publication date: 2019
ISBN: 9781760685669
Location: Animals and Plants
Call number: J629.892/BAL
NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge Years 5-6
Dinosaurs of the future, created by humans to protect themselves from the dangerously evolved Mechanica. This is the third book in Lance Balchin’s Mechanica series, with the same amazingly detailed drawing style. Dinosaur, robot, science. Monster? This book is worth it for the pictures alone, but the text adds extra depth and detail.
Chapter books
Title: D-Bot Squad: Dino Hunter
Author: Mac Park
Format: Chapter book
Publication date: 2017
ISBN: 9781760295974
Location: I Can Read
NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge Years 3-4
Hunter Marks is slightly obsessed with dinosaurs, and no one will believe that he actually saw one. When he discovers that dinosaurs have escaped from their secret island, Hunter is chosen to be part of D-Bot Squad to help catch them.
A book specially created by Susannah McFarlane (Mac) and Louise Park (Park) for kids who are just starting to read by themselves, with live dinosaurs and dinosaur robots (D-Bots) and an awesome librarian (Ms Stegg). What’s not to love? This is the first book in the D-Bot Squad series, with seven more adventures to enjoy!
Title: Tyrannosaurus in the Veggie Patch
Author: Nick Falk and Tony Flowers
Format: Chapter book
Publication date: 2013
ISBN: 9781742756554
Location: Children’s Series
Call number: SAU
NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge Years 3-4
Saurus Street is just like any other street. Except for the time portal that lets dinosaurs come through when a kid wishes hard enough. When a Tyrannosaurs turns up in Jack’s veggie patch, he has to figure out how to send it back to the Cretaceous period before his mum and dad find out. This is book one, with another five mischievous dinosaurian adventures in the Saurus Street series.
Graphic novel
Title: Dinosaur explorers. #1 Prehistoric pioneers
Author: Redcote and Albbie
Format: Graphic novel
Publication date: 2018
ISBN: 9781545801291
Location: Children’s Series
Call number: DIN
Rain, Sean and Stone are trapped 570 million years ago in the Precambrian Era, and need to find electricity to fix their time machine. With a mix of comic-style storyline and pages with detailed information about the earliest life on our planet, this one is perfect for young palaeontologists. The fun doesn’t stop with this one, there are five more books in this series!
Non-fiction
Title: Lifesize Dinosaurs
Author: Sophy Henn
Format: Non-fiction book
Publication date: 2019
ISBN: 9781405293952
Location: Animals and Plants
Call number: J567.9/HEN
Understanding the size of dinosaurs can be really hard, but this book is here to help you. Want to know how your nose compares to a Pteranodon’s beak? Sophy Henn’s illustrations can show you, and then you can use the size chart in the back to that it has a wingspan of 20 Lifesize Dinosaurs books. How many books tall are you?
Title: Australia’s Amazing Dinosaurs
Author: Australian Geographic
Format: Non-fiction book
Publication date: 2019
ISBN: 9781925847574
Location: Animals and Plants
Call number: J567.9/AUS
Australian dinosaurs were quite different to dinosaurs in other countries. Want to know about our special dinos? This book has detailed profiles of 14 Australian dinosaurs, including maps, photographs and drawings of how they might have looked (and details of how we know).
Joke book
Title: The Funniest Dinosaur Joke Book Ever
Author: Joe King
Format: Joke book
Publication date: 2018
ISBN: 9781783446483
Location: Jokes and Riddles
Q: What do you call a gigantoraptor that won’t stop talking?
A: A dino-bore!
Don’t be that gigantoraptor, don’t be a dino-bore! Amuse yourself and your friends with this book full of dinosaur jokes!
Audio book
Title: The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins
Author: Barbara Kerley with drawings by Brian Selznick
Format: e-video
Publication date: 2010
Location: Kanopy online video
What would it be like to NOT know what dinosaurs looked like? In a time before dinosaurs were universally known, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was an artist who worked with scientists to create the first life-size models of dinosaurs and their skeletons. Find out what it was like to imagine a whole dinosaur from a pile of bones, and see how different our understanding is today.
Other websites
DK Find Out! Dinosaurs and prehistoric life
Part of Newcastle Libraries’ online resources for kids, DK Find Out! Dinosaurs and prehistoric life is part of a database jam-packed full of fun and informative content that links back to books in the library’s collection. Featuring interactive pictures, lots of videos and some quizzes, DK Find Out! is constantly updated with the latest information.
American Museum of Natural History
While we may not be able to visit this museum in person (it’s in New York!), we can visit virtually through their website. The American Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur page has many great articles, games (you’ll need Adobe Flash for some), and videos, such as the Titanosaur video below. They even have a special part just for kids that has some great stories and hands-on activities.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Remember that book near the top of the page, How the Dinosaur got to the Museum? Well, this is the museum that Jessie Hartland was writing about! The Smithsonian Institution is a collection of research, education and museum spaces in New York and Washington, DC. Entry is free to most of their spaces, and they have a lot of content online. When it comes to dinosaurs, their virtual tour of the David H Koch Hall of Fossils – Deep Time at the National Museum of Natural History is an amazing experience to have in your own home. The clear pictures provide amazing detail, and you can move around and zoom in to read the signs. Navigate it on your own or team it with the Deep Time app (available from Apple and Google Play) for a description of the exhibition as you go. If you use the accessibility settings on your device, it can read the description to you.
Australian Age of Dinosaurs
Part of Australia’s Dinosaur Trail in outback Queensland, Winton’s Australian Age of Dinosaurs website has a lot of business details, but also a lot of great information about our very own dinosaurs. The website shares details on the discovery of each dinosaur, including where it was found, who found it, and how much we know (or don’t know) about it. There are teacher’s resources that have some fun activity sheets that you might like to try at home.
There is also a sister site, for the Dinosaur Stampede National Monument, where you can discover the terrifying story told by dinosaur footprints found in the rock. The school resources page has some fact sheets and fun activities, and you can download a digital copy of the display information they have on the site.
I Know Dino: The Big Dinosaur Podcast
The weekly I Know Dino podcast is for the true dinosaur enthusiast, with lots of up-to-date information, fun facts, interviews with palaeontologists and other dino experts, and a “dino of the day” feature. Husband and wife team Garret and Sabrina bring their love of dinosaurs to a very wide audience with their website and podcast. Warning! This is not a kid’s website or podcast, but it is a great source of information that people of all ages can pick and choose from.
The blog-style posts on the website are a little bit older, but Sabrina’s dinosaur stories and easy read Dino 5 posts (with five dinosaur facts, or movies, or books) are fairly timeless, and Garret’s weekly summaries of dinosaur related news show how dinosaurs are still being discovered and updated with new displays, findings and ideas.
Is that podcast too long, too wordy, too adult for you? That’s fine! Try some bite-sized Kid Friendly Dinosaur Fun Facts!
References
American Museum of Natural History. (n.d.). Dinosaurs. Retrieved from https://www.amnh.org/dinosaurs
Australian Age of Dinosaurs. (n.d.). Australian age of dinosaurs. Retrieved from https://www.australianageofdinosaurs.com/
Australian Geographic. (2019). Australia’s amazing dinosaurs. Sydney, NSW: Australian Geographic.
Balchin, L. (2019). Jurassica: a beginner’s field guide. Richmond, Victoria: Little Hare Books.
Dorling Kindersley. (2020). Dinosaurs and preshistoric life. Retrieved from https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/dinosaurs-and-prehistoric-life/
Falk, N., & Flowers, T. (2013). Tyrannosaurus in the veggie patch (Vol. 1). North Sydney: Random House Australia.
Hartland, J. (2011). How the dinosaur got to the museum. Maplewood, NJ: Blue Apple Books.
Henn, S. (2019). Lifesize dinosaurs. London: Red Shed.
Kerley, B., & Selznick, B. (2002). The dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins. Leamington Spa: Scholastic.
King, J. (2018). The funniest dinosaur joke book ever. London: Andersen Press.
Krimitsos, C. (Executive Producer). (n.d.). Kid friendly dinosaur fun facts podcast [Podcast]. Retrieved from https://app.kidslisten.org/pod/Kid-Friendly-Dinosaur-Fun-Facts-Podcast
Kruger, G., & Ricci, S. (Producers). (n.d.). I Know Dino: the big dinosaur podcast [Podcast]. Retrieved from https://iknowdino.com/
Lee, L. (Executive Producer), & Ellard, M. R. (Director). (2010). The dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins [Streaming video]. Retrieved from Kanopy Video Streaming database
Lee, L. (Executive Producer), & List, P. (Director). (2015). Goldilocks and the three dinosaurs [Streaming video]. Retrieved from Kanopy Video Streaming database
Park, M. (2017). Dino hunter (Vol. 1). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Redcode, & Albbie. (2018). Prehistoric pioneers (Vol. 1). New York: Papercutz.
Smithsonian Institution (Producer). (2019). Deep Time audio description (Version 0.9.6) [Mobile application software]. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.si.natualhistory.deeptime
Smithsonian Institution. (n.d.-a). David H. Koch Hall of Fossils – Deep Time. Retrieved from https://naturalhistory.si.edu/exhibits/david-h-koch-hall-fossils-deep-time
Smithsonian Institution. (n.d.-b). Virtual tour. Retrieved from https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour
Willems, M. (2012). Goldilocks and the three dinosaurs. London: Walker Books.