Dino-Dancing is elementary school gold

If you’ve been to an elementary school library or have seen the books that your kids bring home then you’ve run across a book by Lisa Wheeler.  From Dino-Baseball through Dino-Basketball and now Dino-Dancing her series of books; with illustrations from Barry Gott, illustrate anthropomorphic dinosaurs doing what kids 5 and up do, or either want to do.

For example, Dino-Racing is a favorite of our children, but they’re still at least 10 years away from driving anything. As a parent, I love this series because it extends the life cycle of our children’s interest in dinosaurs. Our oldest lost interest in dinosaurs when he was 6, but when he was in it, he was passionate about them. He could identify most of them based on their appearance and going to any dinosaur exhibit in town was mandatory.

He discovered the Dino series right when he was aging out of the ‘cool’ factor of dinosaurs. Some of the vocabulary in the book is challenging for a first grader, some sight words will be known and there are lots of rhyming words to help them bridge sentences. The books feature lots of illustrations of any dinosaur under the sun, as well as, their cheering crew, as they compete in whatever challenge.

In Dino-Dancing it’s all about busting a move, but it’s also about nailing the pirouette. Kids will laugh as they read along to the Lesothosaurus leaping and stretching to some modern dance moves. The Rhythmic Reds are a mixed group of dinos whose hip-hop routine starts to go south until Big T-Rex comes busting through to save the dance day.

As we started to read Dino-Dancing to our 6 year old a most surprising thing happened. The 8 year old who moved on to chapter books, graphic novels and all age comics popped his head into his younger brother’s room. “Whatcha reading”, he asked.  Of course, he knew what we were reading because he’s familiar with the rhyme and circumstance of the Dino series; he simply wanted to get in on story time.

I finished reading Dino-Dancing to both of them and the older one asked if I could read it to him again. And this was from the second grader who makes fun of books when I read them to his brother.  That’s the beauty of this series of books. They can be for the pre-K audience, but they also demo up to kid through elementary school. If you’re not familiar with this series they’re well worth digging into at your local library, book store as they’re guaranteed to entertain boys and girls equally.