Review: If I Had a Dinosaur by Gabby Dawnay, illustrated by Alex Barrow

A little girl desperately wants a new pet but she's bored with dogs, cats, and fish. She wants a dinosaur just like her small world toy only real, and much, much bigger! But how will she look after it? What will she do with it? Hilarity ensues as her imagination runs wild! 

This upbeat picture book, written by Gabby Dawnay, allows a caring brown-skinned child to occupy a whimsical space often reserved for little white girls and boys. The text doesn't shout about her brown or Blackness (her ethnicity is not specified), we just see a happy child being a child, merrily lost in her imagination, and having a great time along the way!

The clever use of fun pictorial cues as substitutes for common nouns ensures all children can actively engage with the text from the outset while gently encouraging them to explore how words relate to each other within sentences. 

It's great to see the publisher has rectified the offensive slit eyes used to depict Asian children in the first print run, although the alien greeny-yellow skin colour is only partially fixed. Do make sure you obtain an updated version of this book if you intend to use this text with your children. 

The fun dino facts on the preliminary pages, comparing a titanosaur's length and mass with buses and elephants, will satisfy the dinosaur enthusiasts as well as offer natural maths links. Older children could measure giant dinosaur 'footprints' using non-standard units of their choosing, or sort/order dinosaurs in different ways (maths). All children might enjoy various dinosaur-themed activities. For example, being paleontologists by researching what different dinosaurs liked to eat to create 'healthy' dino 'poo' or discovering dino 'fossils' in salt dough, sand, or ice, breaking them out using fingers or appropriate hand tools (PD/UW).

The well-timed rhymes and strong repetition are great for language development and comprehension skills, such as prediction (the centre spread with its yucky surprise is perfect for this!). There's also plenty of rich descriptive vocabulary to absorb and, once children are familiar with the story, you may find them using the descriptive words, verbally or in writing when creating large dino paintings for instance (L, CAL, EAD).  

Although Alex Barrow's impactful illustrations seem simplistic at first glance, they subtly support the text in many ways. Observational details, such as the girl's teeny dino toy, her dino PJs, and her clearing up of dino poo all provide additional info about her special interest and personality. 

Additionally, Barrow allows the dinosaur's body to span several pages and squeezes parts of its body into tight domestic spaces, such as cat flaps, doorways, windows, and single beds. All of this plus a crumpled school chair, wonky light shade, and broom for a toothbrush reinforce the sense of the dinosaur's immense dimensions without the author having to continually spell it out in words. 

There's also some great interplay between the text and images: the double-meanings of 'bark' and 'smashing' are pointed up, which could prompt interesting discussions with the children. The girl's real pet cat reappears intermittently throughout the story, mirroring the dinosaur's actions, reminding astute early readers that it's all just a bit of fantasy.  

Possible questions: Can you guess what new pet the little girl would like? How do you know? (A dinosaur because she has dinosaur PJs and there was a dinosaur on the book cover.) Why do the schoolchildren say the dinosaur is cool? (Because they can slide down him.) What is happening to the dinosaur's chair? (It's breaking...because the dinosaur is too heavy.) Which animals bark? (There are dogs in the picture. They bark.) (See note below.) Children might want to talk about their own pets and how they look after them at home. They may also think about pets they'd like and why, using the sentence starter 'If I had a...' as a prompt (CAL/PSHE/UW).

This joyful story, with its wonderfully warm humour and clever wordplay will be a memorable text for all young children, particularly dinosaur fans!  

Notes for teachers and parents

National Geographic website: Dinosaurs

Biologically speaking, other animals bark too. Wolves, seals, monkeys, and others can bark but use the sound less often.

Guide for teachers and parents

Genre	Narrative: stories with rhyme and repetition; stories about special interests; stories with strong supporting illustrations
Child-led interests (EYFS)	dinosaurs, animals, numbers
Age group (EYFS, KS1, KS2)	EYFS
Curriculum links/topics (EYFS/NC)	EYFS: Literacy CAL PD  PSED Maths UW EAD
Suitability	whole-class reading, class/school library, home library
General features	first-person narration; repetition; rhyme; homonyms (words with double meanings: bark and smashing); rich descriptions including synonyms for big (enormous, broad, massive, giant); strong illustrations add layers of meaning to the text

All the Black children's books that I review are checked against my Jericho Benchmark.