That's Not My Dinosaur...
That's Not My Dinosaur... by Fiona Watt takes about 1 minute to read aloud (90 words, about 1 sentence a page), and it lands best with children aged 0-3.
Measured read-aloud timeabout 1 minute
- Words
- 90our estimate, not a published count
- Sentences a page
- 1
- Re-read tolerance
- 4/5survives a fortnight on repeat
- Vocabulary
- 2/5everyday words
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The useful verdict
Why That's Not My Dinosaur... works
One texture patch per page and one sentence frame - 'That's not my dinosaur, its scales are too bumpy' - which is how a toddler picks up texture words. The mouse hides on every spread, giving them a second job once they know the words.
Before you buy it
Eight pages of the same sentence. Adults tire of it long before the child does.
Themes: textures, dinosaurs, adjectives, first books.
Same shape, new story
Books like That's Not My Dinosaur...
Matched by length, refrain, sentence density, and listener—not just subject.
Pat the Bunnyabout 1 minute · 4/5 re-read
Dear Zooabout 1 minute · 5/5 re-read
Where's Spot?about 1 minute · 5/5 re-read
Dinosaur Roar!under a minute · 4/5 re-read
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?about 2 minutes · 5/5 re-read
Dinosaur Dig!about 1.5 minutes · 4/5 re-read
That's Not My Puppy...about 1 minute · 4/5 re-read
That's Not My Truck...about 1 minute · 4/5 re-read
That's Not My Unicorn...about 1 minute · 4/5 re-read
Straight answers
Questions parents ask about That's Not My Dinosaur...
- How long does it take to read That's Not My Dinosaur... aloud?
- About 1 minute at an unhurried pace, from a word count of 90. Reading it fast shaves perhaps a third off; stopping for questions on every page can double it.
- What age is That's Not My Dinosaur... actually for?
- Ages 0-3 in our testing, which is narrower than the publisher's range. With 1 sentence a page and vocabulary at 2 out of 5, it asks for that much attention span and no more.
- Does That's Not My Dinosaur... survive being read on repeat?
- Yes. It survives a fortnight of nightly repeats, which is the real test.
- Is That's Not My Dinosaur... a good book for a child who will not sit still?
- It helps that 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.