Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff

Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff

Rating: 5 stars

Of course we love Danny and the Dinosaur!  Who can resist the charm of visiting a museum and finding a dinosaur that can wake up after 50 gazillion years to play with you and your friends?  Not us!

Here are some noteworthy things about this noteworthy book: 

1.  No parents are in the pictures; just kids.  What a great reminder that childhood should really involve time just with children, not only time supervised by adults.

2.  Danny really wants the dinosaur to come home and live with him forever, but the dinosaur simply explains that the museum needs him.  I love this little homage to one of my favorite things at playgrounds: the short little friendships that emerge just in a game of chase or follow the leader, where names aren't even bother to be exchanged. 

3.  During a game of hide-and-seek, the dinosaur can't find a place to hide where the kids can't find him (no surprise there).  So they "make believe they can't find him" and let him win.  That's Ben's favorite page by far, when the text reads, "Where oh where is that dinosaur?" and so on, and the huge dinosaur is hiding behind a tiny light post.  This is exactly how my kids play hide-and-seek!  I explained to Lorelei how the kids were making the dinosaur feel better by pretending they couldn't find him.  (Oh please let at least a few of these lessons in empathy stick!)

4.  It's actually pretty long!  But because the illustrations are so captivating and funny, even Ben can sit through this book pretty easily, and he's got plenty of ants in his pants.

This is worth buying, but only buy a great hard cover version, or maybe even the library binding, because it'll be on your shelf for a long time.  And then on your children's shelves for their kids.  Imagine that!