How Big Were Dinosaurs?

by Lita Judge

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a Velociraptor for a walk, or try to brush a Tyrannosaur's teeth? We think of dinosaurs as colossal giants, but how big were they REALLY?

With kid-friendly text and seriously silly illustrations, this fact-filled book puts dinosaurs next to modern animals so that you can see exactly how they size up. And a huge fold-out chart compares the dinos to each other, from the tiniest Microraptor to Argentinosaurus, the largest animal to ever walk the land.

*An NPR Best Book of 2013*

Genres: Picture Books, Dinosaurs, Nonfiction, Childrens, Science, Animals, 2nd Grade

40 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2013

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dinosaurs roam the pages of this picture book, which puts the lie to the notion that all dinosaurs were enormous in size and lived in similar habitats. Because the author/illustrator juxtaposes different types of dinosaurs against animals with which most readers will be familiar, it's easy to see that they were actually various sizes. For instance, the Microraptor was slightly smaller than a chicken, the Leaellynasaura was only two feet tall and lived near the South Pole. And the book makes it clear that size didn't necessarily translate into brain capacity or smarts; for instance, the Stegosaurus, which weighed about a much as three cows, had a walnut-size brain. The facts and comparisons come fast and furious in this picture book, which concludes with information about scientists use fossils to help them form conjectures about how dinosaurs actually looked. The softly-colored illustrations enable readers to look at the different animals carefully. Four pages fold out to reveal all the dinosaurs and modern animals featured in the book and allow young readers to make comparisons. This is another exceptional title from Lita Judge, who answers the title question, "How Big Were Dinosaurs?" by saying, "Not as big as you thought they were."

[Elizabeth]

At the Explore•a•Saurus exhibit at the Boston Children's Museum, my 23-month-old nibling brought this over and I saw my mom pull-out a multi-page spread and was intrigued and got a library copy.

The illustrations are fun, depicting humans and other modern-day animals interacting with the dinosaurs to give a sense of their size (and often their behavior as well) alongside the text.

Though I'm pedantic and the spread that says, "Tyrannosaurus Rex had a skul nearly as long as a man is tall. [...] Imagine cleaning the 9-inch long teeth of this fearsome meat-eater!" I looked at the illustration of a nervous-looking dentist and thought, "I can't see much of her body, but proportionally, I think she's taller than the T-Rex's head... and his teeth look to be about the size of her hands, so that's definitely not 9 inches."

Another reviewer noted that "All of the dinosaurs are "he," and are measured according whether they were "longer than a man's arm," or "nearly as long as a man is tall," and halfway through reading aloud my seven year old shifted into reading it inclusively instead (taking away from the text itself). All of the humans in the book are boys or men, save two: a woman in an apron-like dress shooing a dinosaur with a broom, and a dental hygienist brushing another dinosaur's teeth."

---

As an aside, I appreciated BCM's stacking the deck with books by female authors in that room:
* Born to be giants : how baby dinosaurs grew to rule the world / Lita Judge.
* Boy, were we wrong about dinosaurs! / Kathleen V. Kudlinski ; illustrated by S.D. Schindler.
* How big were dinosaurs? / Lita Judge.
* Saturday night at the dinosaur stomp / Carol Diggory Shields ; illustrated by Scott Nash.
* Dinosaur dance! / by Sandra Boynton

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

The illustrations are beautiful. And I love the idea of the book, to compare the sizes of dinosaurs to animals alive today.
But I hate that even this beautiful book sends weird messages to my daughter. 19 images of people in the book, 3 of whom are women: a dental hygienist, an artist and a housewife (?) wielding a broom and wearing an apron. All children are boys. So I guess women are still the second sex, and men/boys are the default. Also, everyone's white. And the sizes of dinosaur parts are compared to the height of a man, the length of a man's arm. Would it have killed us to talk about a person or a person's arm? Nothing exact here, the average height of a woman or a man in Sweden or the US or France is not the same. And all dinosaurs are 'he' for some reason. So yes, thank you to this little book for reinforcing gender bias for no particular reason.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in an easygoing conversational style, this book introduces new and well-known dinosaurs to young readers and specifically refers to their size, with a great open up (4 page) comparison spread at the end. Lots of good comparisons help to make size understandable to the readers, e.g., a leaellynasaura was about two feet tall, similar to an emperor penguin. Back matter explains how we know how big different dinosaurs were, plus relevant websites and books.
Charming illustrations with a hint of humour do their part in making this a very appealing book for young dinosaur lovers - and what kid doesn't love dinosaurs at some stage!

[Lynn Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this beautifully illustrated book dinosaurs are depicted to show their size in comparison to one another, and to the animals that we are familiar with now. There are so many different kinds of dinosaurs which lived at different times and which varied greatly in size and weight. For example, the microraptor was hardly the size of a chicken, but it was a well-equipped hunter. The stegosaurus was as large as three cows together, but was a plant eater. There’s very good information in this book which is so interesting and easy to read and understand.

[Bailey Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

How Big Were Dinosaurs? by Lita Judge is a great non fiction fact book for kids wanting to learn about dinosaurs. This book gives measurements that can compare with modern animals to size them up. This book could also be used to teach kids about dinosaurs. The text is extremely kid-friendly for kids to understand the information to match the creative illustrations. I would definitely recommend this book for the clasroom.

[Hang · Rating 4 out of 5]

This picture book was so cute! I loved how it showed all types of dinosaurs and how brilliantly done the illustrations were. The way that the author and illustrator demonstrated various sizes of dinosaurs was really clear to see. The book would be perfect in a science classroom or as a read aloud in an ELA classroom. I really enjoyed this read and found it super intriguing all around. I will definitely share this book as a teacher in early education. This book was absolutely gorgeous.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The text is about scale of different dinosaurs -- relative to each other, relative to items or animals that exist now. The scale is sometimes height or length, and it's sometimes weight.

For a book so interested in scale, the scale of some of the illustrations seemed off. (Emperor penguins should be taller than they're depicted as, for example.)

[Eliot Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

From Microraptor, a meat eater the size of a chicken, to Argentinosaurus, a giant vegetarian who “weighed more than a herd of seventeen elephants,” dinosaurs of all sizes are illustrated and compared next to similarly sized modern day animals (and some vehicles) to help kids better imagine their sizes.

[Christopher Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non-Fiction
Middle Ages (4-6)
I really appreciated the fold apart map at the end of the book, and spent a while looking at the size comparisons. It's crazy to me how much has changed since I was a kid. I thought about why the tsintaosaurus might have the weird thing on its head and I wonder if it's a whistle to scare off or attract other dinosaurs.

[Jennifer Oswald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review from my 8 year old son:
"I felt I already knew a lot about dinosaurs already but I learned some new things from this book like I never knew how much bigger the Argentiosaurus was than the T-rex! Cool comparisons."

[Tressa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the information in How Big Were Dinosaurs? and the illustrations. It was entertaining and educational. I also liked that there were dinosaurs that I wasn’t familiar with in the book.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the pictures in this book. I liked the drawing style and the colors. But I'm just not into dinosaur books that try to teach you "facts" about dinosaurs. We don't have any eye witness accounts of live dinosaurs. It's all just a bunch of guess work.

[Addison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. It shows how big dinosaurs are and comparing them to other animals such as penguins, dogs, and more. It's a really cute book and shows kids how big dinosaurs truly were to give them an idea.

[Heather Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

megan summer reading 2017, children's book, picture book, nonfiction, non-fiction, dinosaurs, size, comparisons, archaeology, history, science, biology, prehistoric, second grade, third grade,

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dinosaur comaprision of the differnt sizes of dinosaurs with bright pictures and a nonfiction companion at the end. Elementary or one on one.

[Haaley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting. I liked seeing the illustrated size conparisons.

[Vickie Moody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book for teachers and parents to read to children

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fantastic and filled with new to me information. I love how the author compared the dinosaurs to modern day animals to help give an accurate gage of their size; that was helpful.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice illustrations, good balance of text vs illustration. Liked how it showed size compared to familiar animals.

[Joleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and delightful!

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute for dinosaur lovers!!

[Aragon Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

Educational book showing the size of dinosaurs compared to other things.

Story = purposeful & enjoyed it

Illustrations = nice

[wildct2003 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yay lita judge

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a cute book comparing dinosaurs to modern-day animals. My boys loved it.

[Sarah Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this story for Elementary aged children. It is an interactive story that allows students to see the true size of dinosaurs during their time. They are not all as big as everyone assumes.

[Hailey Corman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story that taught me a lot about dinosaurs and their size. This would be great recommendation for a kid who loves dinosaurs.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books talks about the size of dinosaurs! It gives comparisons and names and pictures. Some of them are fun, like don't try to make a ___ do what they don't want to (as they drag him to the vet)... I think this is a way for kids to understand the size proportions. Plus this goes into how and why we think we know what these dinosaurs looked like even though we never have seen them.

[Petter Ruenes · Rating 4 out of 5]

About the book:
I like the simplisity of this book. It is very up to the point about it's mission. The title of the book is a question, a question I think can interest a lot children. It is also a question the book answers in a detailed, yet simple way. It also tells the reader how they can measure dinosaurs lenght and height. The text is short and concrete. The illustration covers the whole pages and the text is inside the illustration. It also has some sense of humour in the way of explaining things. An example is how the Stegosaurus weighed as much as theee cows, and illustrating this with three cows next to the dinosaur. You learn about different kinds of dinosaurs and the book also ends with an explanation of how we can know the sizes of the different dinosaurs. Also at the end is two pages you can unfold to watch a big illustrations of all the different dinosaurs next to eachother, as well as some objects, persons and animals from our daily lives. I like the simplisity of the book and how the visual style and text collaborates.

Twin pairing book & reason for choosing this book:
The book I have chosen to pair with the nonfiction book above is called "Dinosaur Dream". I am not very happy with pairing this book because I think the story has more potential then what the author has used. The title very much explains the content of the book. The Dinosaur Dream is about a boy named Wilbur who has a big interest for dinosaurs. It is right before bedtime and he is reading a book about dinosaurs. He is very tired and his eyelids are heavy. Suddenly there was something outside the window. It was a baby dinosaur. He chose to name it Gideon and decided that it was best for the dinoasaur to be back with other dinosaurs, so he chooses to take him back to the Jurassic period. In order to get there they have to travel through the different periods that was between the Jurassic period and now, periods like the ice age. They meet many different animals from the different time periods, and in the end Gideon is united with his fellow dinosaurs and one of the big dinosaurs helps Wilbur get back home.

The book has a clear connection with the nonfiction book as it's theme is dinosaurs. We see two different kinds of dinosaurs in this fiction book, and can make it easier for the students to identify based on what they learned from the nonfiction book. I don't have any problems with the illustrations, although it is clear that it is an older book. I find the illustrations imaginative and opens up for interpreting. The Dinosaur Dream gives the reader a better understanding of the dinosaurs compared to the earth's timeline and the different time periods that the earth has been through. I personally think the story is too fast-paced and has much higher potential then what the final result shows.

Chosen fiction book: Dinosaur Dream (1990) by Dennis Nolan.