Book Review - Dinosaur Zoom by Penny Dale

From a Triceratops to a Stegosaurus, all the dinosaurs are travelling to a surprise party. The smallest dinosaur, a carnotaurus, is going to be 4 years old. Each dinosaur travels in a different vehicle, which make different noises as they travels along.

The children like to remember what colour dinosaurs travel in which vehicle.

Q: What colour dinosaur drives the pick-up truck? The Blue dinosaur.

In fact it is so well read the children also can describe the different sounds of each vehicle as we turn the pages:

Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!

Rrrrmm! Rrrrmm! Rrrrmm!

Chugger! Chugger! Chugger!

Brrmm! Brrmm! Brrmm!

We like to practise making these sounds together to exercise our mouths, and everyone loves to join in. At the end we all sing Happy Birthday to the little dinosaur when we see the pictures of his party.

It is a simple story with a repeated pattern of text on each page, which the children enjoy the familiarity of. Despite its simplicity, it is a fantastic story for retelling over and over, practicing the different sounds and talking about what can be seen in the busy illustrations on each page. Look out for a copy to borrow from Overton Library, but it is unlikely to stay on the shelf for long each time it is returned!