“How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?” ~ It’s Good, But Feels Incomplete

Jane Yolen and Mark Teague are back with the latest in the “How Do Dinosaurs….” series that includes How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? and How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms?.

My dino-crazy 6 year old boy loves this series, and the school book fair gave me a great opportunity to buy him the newest book at a reduced price. (I love the Scholastic Book Club - if your school participates, it’s a great way to feed your children’s book habit without having to chop off a limb to pay for it, and your child’s class will get free books for the classroom, too)

How Do Dinosaurs Go To School? continues in the tradition of the previous books in the series, asking a bunch of questions about the behavior of the dinosaurs, specifically their bad behavior. “Does he drag his long tail? Is he late for the bus? Does he stomp all four feet? Does he make a big fuss?”

The book focuses both on how the dinosaur gets to school, plus his behavior once he gets there. Along the way we are introduced to Herrerasauras, Dsungaripterus, Stygimoloch, Centrosaurus, Monolophosaurus, Segnosaurus, Iguanodon, Silvisaurus, Diplodocus, and Ceratosaurus.

For the most part, the book is the usual brilliant bit of reverse psychology that characterize the books in the series. But I do have to mention a couple of things. While the book asks about the Dinosaurs’ behavior both getting ready for school and at school, the answers back only pertain to the behavior at school.

This is all well and good, as I want my kids to behave at school, but given the nightmare that getting six and seven year olds out the door in the morning has become, I would have loved to have had the book address getting ready for school. That way, I could ask my kids about how the dinosaurs would do it, or tell them they are acting like the naughty dinosaurs, just like I do when I am making them clean up their rooms. All it usually takes is a query about the dinosaurs, and they know that I am at the end of my rope and they’d better straighten up or Mean Mom will make an appearance.

The other issue is the same one I have with all the books in the series - we need a pronunciation key, please! The further along in the series these get, the harder it is to pronounce the names of the dinosaurs, and when I’m trying to read the book to my kidlets at bedtime is not the time to be struggling over how to say the words.

My son is a stickler for precision, so he not only wants to know how to pronounce these things, he expects perfect diction and execution on my part. It would be nice to continue the delusion that mom knows everything book related for at least a couple of years more.

Despite these issues, How Do Dinosaurs Go To School? is a great book to help your dinosaur-loving child adjust to all the new rules and standards of school.