Review: How to Raise a Dinosaur by Natasha Wing and Pablo Bernasconi

How to Raise a Dinosaur is an adorable picture book for children between the ages of 4 and 8.  Natasha Wing provides a guide for children who want a pet, with practical advice about selecting a pet of an appropriate size and making sure they walk, feed, and clean up after them.  Well, the advice would be practical if the pet wasn’t a dinosaur, but because the prehistoric creature is the pet in question, Wing advises them to have a bulldozer on hand to pick up its droppings!  (And of course, there’s an illustration for that.)

The Girl (age 10) has loved dinosaurs since she was a toddler.  We have tons of dinosaur picture books, scientific books, figures, puzzles, and paleontologist kits.  So even though she’s a bit old for this book, I thought we’d enjoy it anyway.  And we did.  And of course, she wishes she could have a pet dinosaur…but she’ll have to settle for the goldfish.

Pablo Bernasconi’s illustrations are filled with warm colors that bring the story to life.  We also enjoyed taking turns with the flaps on nearly every page that open various doors and even the dinosaur itself to reveal its skeleton.

How to Raise a Dinosaur is a cute book (so cute that when I told The Girl she should pass it on to her two-year-old cousin, she refused) that will engage children’s imaginations and even set them on the right track toward responsible pet ownership — but hopefully with a more manageable animal.

Disclosure: We received a copy of How to Raise a Dinosaur from Running Press Kids for review purposes. I am an Amazon associate.

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