Gigantosaurus

Product Information

As a rule, the problem with rhythmic stories for children – which you notice when you’re reading them out loud over and over again – is that you often find that you want to add or remove words to retain a more poetic flow than the original. Like The Boy who Cried Wolf, the theme to the story shares the caution of even when a liar is telling the truth, they are unlikely to be believed. Please DO NOT expect Smarboard notebook files to open unless you have Smartboard software on your computer. Several dinosaur types are mentioned, but nothing beyond the usual 4 that children know by the time they are three. Watch this time-lapse video of the author creating illustrations for covers of the Harry Potter books.

The artwork is wonderful and fun to look at and the dialogue itself is also fun as it is all in rhyme.

A wonderful surprise is the fantastic fold out in the middle of the book – children will be absolutely tickled! After a while, his friends leave him to be eaten by a dinosaur bigger than T-Rex, the Gigantosaurus. Yet, I found Bonehead to be the cutest of the dinosaurs, easily exciteable and obviously a little fearful. After Gigantosaurus wanders off, the friends think their little buddy Ankylosaurus had been turned into lunch. Following the path of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, four little dinosaurs are warned by their parents to watch out for Gigantosaurus.

Three cute dinosaurs and one ugly dinosaur subtly named Bonehead are warned by their parents to avoid the Gigantosaurus. In this dinosaur-themed retelling of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," one little dino offers to watch for predators while his friends play. When reviewing picture books, I firstly ignore the text and flip through the pages allowing the illustrations to talk to me. I thought the illustrations were very well done, but I just couldn't see Bonehead as being a liar as the other characters saw him.is a bumper year for Arena Illustration with no less than 4 of our contributors featuring on this year’s collection of World Book Day Books. Bonehead always insists on being the lookout but enjoys flaunting his power, tricking the other dinos into hiding from friendly dinosaurs. So if you have a child that loves being read to every night before bed, is dinosaur mad, and wants the same book over and over and over again, then this book won’t go extinct too soon! I like the back of the book that tells about the different dinosaurs and also about the true Giganotosaurus (yes that's how you spell it). Despite everything happening in the world some occasions will always make things better and one of those is World Book Day, arguably the best day of the year!

Speaking as a book designer, the only drawback for me is that the typography was a little less thought out than the illustrations, the story, and the cover. A set of seven workshhets involving work on rhyme, capitalisation, writing questions, big/small vocabulary, sequencing words in muddled sentences, picture sequencing and caption writing. There’s also a clever fold out when the ‘Gigantosaurus’ finally appears – the board book being too small to contain him. Four little dinosaurs are playing outside, but their mothers have warned them to watch out for the Gigantosaurus. The rhyming is done pretty well and kids will likely enjoy the illustration style and the dino guide at the back.As an illustrator myself, I have to admit that I’ve not been that wowed by digital art for children, but this one demonstrates that if you know what you’re doing you can create the depth and detail that usually only comes from physicalart. It's also made possible by generous sponsorship by National Book Tokens and the support of authors and illustrators.