Dinosaur Roar!
Dinosaur Roar! by Henrietta Stickland takes under a minute to read aloud (70 words, about 1 sentence a page), and it lands best with children aged 0-3.
Measured read-aloud timeunder a minute
- Words
- 70our estimate, not a published count
- Sentences a page
- 1
- Re-read tolerance
- 4/5survives a fortnight on repeat
- Vocabulary
- 1/5plain words
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The useful verdict
Why Dinosaur Roar! works
Opposites done as dinosaurs - roar and squeak, fat and tiny, above and below - at two words a page, so a one-year-old can shout half the book. The dinner-table spread at the end is the one they stop on every time.
Before you buy it
Around sixty words in total. It is squarely a toddler book and a three-year-old will exhaust it in a week.
Themes: dinosaurs, opposites, rhyme, first words.
Same shape, new story
Books like Dinosaur Roar!
Matched by length, refrain, sentence density, and listener—not just subject.
That's Not My Dinosaur...about 1 minute · 4/5 re-read
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?about 2 minutes · 5/5 re-read
Ten, Nine, Eightunder a minute · 4/5 re-read
Freight Trainunder a minute · 4/5 re-read
Chicka Chicka Boom Boomabout 2.5 minutes · 5/5 re-read
The Going-to-Bed Bookabout 1 minute · 5/5 re-read
Actual Sizeabout 2 minutes · 5/5 re-read
Straight answers
Questions parents ask about Dinosaur Roar!
- How long does it take to read Dinosaur Roar! aloud?
- Under a minute at an unhurried pace, from a word count of 70. Reading it fast shaves perhaps a third off; stopping for questions on every page can double it.
- What age is Dinosaur Roar! actually for?
- Ages 0-3 in our testing, which is narrower than the publisher's range. With 1 sentence a page and vocabulary at 1 out of 5, it asks for that much attention span and no more.
- Does Dinosaur Roar! survive being read on repeat?
- Yes. It survives a fortnight of nightly repeats, which is the real test.
- Is Dinosaur Roar! a good book for a child who will not sit still?
- It helps that it rhymes, and it has a refrain a child can join in with, and it asks the child questions to answer out loud. Those three features are what keep a wriggling toddler listening, far more than the subject matter does.