Dinosaurs in our Street! by David West

Book review: First impressions of this book are great. It is hardback. The front cover is slightly embossed with the tyrannosaur poking his head out of the Pink Floyd-inspired brick wall background. You can feel his teeth if you want, something you wouldn't want to do if it were real. The book's spine is good too. If you have this sitting on your book shelf a little dinosaur will be keeping its beady eye on you.

Inside all the pages are glossy full colour. There are thirty dinosaurs featured including the well-known ones. Each has a double-page spread with a computer-generated image of the dinosaur in an urban scene with people milling about it. So you'll see a brachiosaurus, for example, standing on its back legs and using its long neck to eat some vegetation from a roof garden at the top of a five-floor block of apartments as people nonchalantly walk past. Also by linking the dinosaurs to these modern urban environments there is a recognisable association that might bring these ancient creatures to life even more than other dinosaur books might.

Beside the images are a couple of paragraphs giving you the lowdown about the dinosaur and a little fact box contains the details of the dinosaur's period, where its fossils have been found, its size, weight and whether it was a herbivore or not, and a scale picture to a human to give you a visual idea as to how big it was. Having checked against Wikipedia quickly though I am not sure of the accuracy of the facts. For example the book says the altirhinus came from the Late Cretaceous period whereas Wikipedia says it came from the Early Cretaceous period. Maybe these things are too hard to estimate and I am probably being too picky.

My 9-year-old daughter loved the book: "It tells you about dinosaurs, how to pronounce their names, whether they are herbivores or carnivores and where their fossils have been found." She loves learning and facts.

My 22-month-year-old son loves it too. Especially when I act out a roaring dinosaur that wants to eat his belly. The pages are at risk of being ripped by him though if he isn't careful.

Overall I can see this being ideal for any young dinosaur fan, and if they want more detail into a particular dinosaur then that can easily be looked up online.

It's on AMAZON now: DINOSAURS IN OUR STREET!