Twelve dinosaur stories, each one about five minutes out loud, illustrated by the paleo-artist Franco Tempesta and published under the Smithsonian Kids name. There is no plot running from one story to the next, so you read one and stop, which at this age is the entire point. It is shelved as nonfiction. Read it once and you will notice it does not behave like nonfiction, and that turns out to be the most interesting thing about it.
The science it actually teaches
Set your expectations before you buy it. A museum's name on a cover makes a book look like a reference, and this is not one. It is a storybook. The science in it is real, but it is thin, and it is not spread evenly across the twelve stories.
Here is what is genuinely in there.
Twelve species, and twelve different animals. For a four-year-old, "dinosaur" is one word for one big lizard, and the fastest way to break that is twelve stories in a row where the body, the size, the teeth and the way it lives are different every time. That sounds small. It is the foundation of everything else, and this book does it well, because Tempesta draws each animal as a specific animal rather than as a monster.
The Maiasaura story is the one carrying real weight. That animal is known for its nest sites and its young, and a story about a baby growing up is not decoration on the fossil record, it is the fossil record. A dinosaur that looked after its babies is a genuine finding, it surprised people when it landed, and a small child can hold on to it.
There is fossil and dig material in the book alongside the stories, so the bones themselves are on the page and not just the animals. That matters more than it sounds like it does, because it puts the source in front of your child at the same time as the claim.
And then here is the honest part. A story about a day in the life of a T. rex is written, not excavated. Nobody dug up what it wanted, what it noticed, or how its morning went. The narrative form is what makes the book readable in five minutes, and it is also what quietly fills the gaps in the evidence with a writer's guesses. Your child will not be able to tell the difference on their own. That is not a flaw you should return the book over. It is the thing you get to teach with it.
So: a child who hears all twelve comes away knowing that dinosaurs were many different animals, that one of them raised its young, and that we know any of this because of bones in the ground. That is a real haul for Pre-K. It is also less than the cover implies, and I would rather tell you that now.
The child it lands with
Three to seven, on a lap or at lights-out. The child who already has fifteen dinosaur names memorized and no book that treats them as animals instead of trivia. The child who wants a story, not a chart, and who will refuse an actual reference book on sight.
It also lands with the parent who wants bedtime to be something other than nothing, and has about six minutes.
One place to stop and talk
At the end of any story where the dinosaur wants something or feels something, ask one question: how would anybody know that? The teeth and the nest and the eggs came out of the ground. The wanting came out of a writer. A five year old can sort those two, and enjoys doing it.
What to know going in
Three things, none of them severe.
Dinosaur stories involve hunting, and hunting involves an animal getting eaten. This is a Pre-K book so it is handled gently, but a sensitive four-year-old at lights-out is a different audience than the same child at ten in the morning, and you know which one you have. Read a story ahead if that is your child.
The band says Pre-K to 2, and that is a read-aloud band. The species names are long, and nobody is sounding out Maiasaura in first grade. If you are buying this for a child to read alone, you will both be let down, and that is a labeling problem rather than a book problem.
Last, the one I have already said and will say again, because it is the reason this note exists. It is sold as nonfiction and it reads as fiction. Handed over without comment, it teaches a child that we know things about these animals that we do not know. Handed over with one question attached, it teaches the opposite. The difference is you.
Where to get it
Smithsonian Kids: 5-Minute Dinosaur Tales is $14.99. Buy it as a bedtime book for a three to seven year old, which is what it is, and not as the dinosaur reference you will still be reaching for at ten, which it is not. On those terms it earns the money. It is also an easy one to give, because a grandparent can buy it without knowing what the child already owns. It is filed under Stealth Science, and it is the gentlest thing on that shelf.
If your child liked this one
Books we have written about that sit close to this one, by reading level and by subject.
T. Rex Teeth: How Anyone Knows What a Dinosaur Bit
What If You Had T. Rex Teeth?: And Other Dinosaur Parts (Scholastic Reader, Level 2) by Sandra Markle
Grade K to 3
Magic School Bus Dinosaurs: The Feather Problem
The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole
Grade 2 to 5
Ash and Smoke: What a Volcano Actually Drops on You
Journey Through Ash and Smoke (Ranger in Time #5) by Kate Messner
Grade 2 to 5
Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967: Who Fed the Bears
I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967 (I Survived #17) by Lauren Tarshis
Grade 2 to 5
Browse every book we have written about by age, by kind of book and by subject: Find the right book for your child. Or see the whole Stealth Science shelf.
