The Mine-O-Saur

The Mine-O-Saur

Written by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

Illustrated by David Clark

Published by The Penguin Group, 2007

29 Pages

Fantasy

     On a personal level, I love anything that has dinosaurs in a story; however, on a professional level, this book is full of projects that could be used in the classroom involving subjects of rhyme schemes, the morality of sharing, extending the vocabulary of dinosaur names, and in the end, the value of friendship over possessions. The expressions on the dinosaurs' faces really cracked me up, and I had a lot of fun reading this book. 

     This story is appropriate for ages 4 and up, so this book would be great to pull out to facilitate differentiation. I could see a classroom really having fun taking turns reading this book verse by verse. By discussing what's going on with the characters, students could take time to group talk about experiences that they may have had that were similar to the Mine-O-Saur incident. This would be a great book to pull out if you were bridging from your reading & writing block into your science block involving dinosaurs.
     The illustrator took special note to detail facial expressions that really outlined the emotions of individual characters. The illustrations used jagged lines to demonstrate energy and excitement. The illustrations and story happens in the setting of a school, so everything besides the dinosaurs themselves are relatable to young readers.