Patrick's Dinosaurs

Our preschool teacher recommended this book and our son, a dinosaur enthusiast, took to it immediately. Great story.

This was my son's favorite book out of a large stack we just returned to the library. I'm thrilled I just found it at a consignment sale cause he was fascinated by the pictures and the actions of the dinosaurs. There were a couple nights reading it that we had to be more sing-songy through parts of the book, but he's not yet three so it's to be expected. The imaginative play is great, as is the brotherly relationship.

I agree with the other reviewers -- the book is very good! The read-along CD is good, too, but unlike most read-alongs, there is not just a narrator -- Patrick and Hank's dialogue are voiced by different readers. This is distracting. Other than that, my four year old and I love it!

This is a very nice book and I'm surprised there aren't more comments on it. The story revolves around Patrick and his older brother Hank. While visiting the zoo, Patrick begins to ask Hank various dinosaur questions. Hank answers them not imagining the use that his younger brother is putting them too. For example, when Hank informs Patrick that one brontosaurus weighs more than 10 elephants, Patrick imagines a huge see-saw with a brontosaurus on one side, and a stacked pyramid of 10 elephants on the other. Similarly, when they go to see the crocodiles Hank says that in the days of dino's that croc's had jaws twice as big as 'you'. Patrick then imagines a single gigantic crocodile having driven off all the little ones. Which brings us to the one picture that might be a concern for some moms and caregivers. The big crocodile is shown swallowing a smaller one: it is half in/half out of his mouth. This can be 'cool' for some kids, but it might bother others. In any case, this imaginative play goes on through diplodocuses, stegosauruses, and triceratops, until we get to that favorite of children, T. Rex. The tyrannosaurus follows the boys home and hangs around leering through the windows - at least in Patrick's mind-- until Hank assures him that dinosaurs are all long gone. Four Stars. Lots of fun. Good Read-aloud. The story combines dinosaurs with imaginative play and it does a good job of giving children a way of understanding the relative size of the big thundering lizards. The relationship between the brothers is wholesome and caring. The Accelerated Reading Level is listed as 3.3 which means that it is on a third grade level. Vocabulary is diverse and the font is relatively small. Pam T~

I'm 11 years old and I still like the book. One reason is because my name is Patrick. I know alot about dinosaurs, so I don't relate to Patrick, I relate to his older brother. My younger brother Sean relates more to Patrick. I like scaring him with weird facts like Patrick's older brother brother does. I recommend it to age groups 4-8, or parents could read it to their children.