Children's books and activities

Dinosaurs

Do you know any kids who are fascinated by dinosaurs (and think that T-Rex rules)? We do! And we've gathered up a great collection of books, activities, apps, and websites for learning all about dinosaurs.

Try pairing fiction with nonfiction books and exploring different genres (like poetry and biographies) and formats (like graphic novels and audio books). You'll be creating your own "text sets" — collections of texts focused on a specific topic, such as dinosaurs. Reading widely in this way helps children build background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.

Dinosaurs

Great Fiction & Nonfiction Books

Age Level: 3-6 years old

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Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo

By: William Joyce

Age Level: 3-6 years old

While on a family excursion to Africa, the Lazardos find a dinosaur and bring him home to their...

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Dinosaur Train

By: John Steven Gurney

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Does Jesse travel back in time or is an imaginative jaunt when he boards a train with a...

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Dinosaur!

By: Peter Sis

Age Level: 3-6 years old

When a boy's toy dinosaurs come to life, a whole new world is created in his bathtub. No...

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Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs

By: Byron Barton

Age Level: 3-6 years old

A long time ago there were dinosaurs. Big dinosaurs and small dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with horns on...

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Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct

By: Mo Willems

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Everyone in town knows Edwina. She is the dinosaur who plays with the kids. She is the dinosaur who...

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How Big Were the Dinosaurs?

By: Bernard Most

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Dinosaurs are endlessly fascinating. Perhaps because it is hard to imagine giant lizards roaming...

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How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?

By: Jane Yolen

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Ten sleepy dinosaurs get ready for bed in this celebration of funny, endearing, and naughty...

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My First Dinosaur Atlas: Roar Around the World with the Mightiest Beasts Ever!

My First Dinosaur Atlas: Roar Around the World with the Mightiest Beasts Ever!

By: Penny Arlon

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Nonfiction

Journey back in time and around the world to learn about dozens of dinosaurs in this colorfully...

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Roar: A Dinosaur Tour

By: Michael Paul

Age Level: 3-6 years old

“Millions of year ago, dinosaurs walked the Earth.” Some were small, some walked on two legs,...

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Stegothesaurus

By: Bridget Heos

Age Level: 3-6 years old

The third brother was a different kind of dinosaur. Rather than a more typical stegosaurus, he...

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Stomp, Dinosaur, Stomp!

By: Margaret Mayo

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Meet massive, wrinkly, stiff-tailed, feathered and more dinosaurs as they stomp, guard, and gulp...

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Tea Rex

By: Molly Idle

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

A Miss Manners–style primer on how to throw a delightfully proper tea party for a dinosaur...

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Time Flies

By: Eric Rohmann

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

A wordless time-travel adventure and a meditation on the scientific theory that dinosaurs were...

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Time Train

By: Paul Fleischman

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Join Miss Pym's students as they take a memorable train trip across the U.S. to a time and...

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Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. Edna the Very First Chicken

By: Douglas Rees

Age Level: 3-6 years old

Fiction

Tyrannosaurus Rex wants breakfast. He stomps and he roars and he gnashes his teeth ― and he...

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When Dinosaurs Came with Everything

By: Elise Broach

Age Level: 3-6 years old

In a playful take on the stickers and lollipops that bored kids sweep up at businesses as parents...

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Age Level: 6-9 years old

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cover of "Archeologists Dig for Clues" showing kids looking at a dig grid map

Archaeologists Dig for Clues

By: Kate Duke

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Archaeologists on a dig work very much like detectives at a crime scene. Every chipped rock,...

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Barnum's Bones: How Barnum Brown Discovered the Most Famous Dinosaur in the World

By: Tracey Fern

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Even as a child, Barnum Brown started collecting fossils. This boy from Carbondale, Kansas, grew up...

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Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs

By: Kathleen V. Kudlinski

Age Level: 6-9 years old

This is a very kid friendly introduction to how a scientific theory is formed through the careful...

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cover of "Chalk" showing a large dinosaur head

Chalk

By: Bill Thomson

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

Join three children who find a magical piece of chalk that begins an exciting series of events...

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Chicken Frank, Dinosaur!

By: S.K. Wenger

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

Chicken Frank wants to prove he’s related to a T.rex ― because of evolution! ― but none of the...

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Dad and the Dinosaur

By: Jennifer Choldenko

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

A father-son story about bravery and facing fears. With his toy dinosaur, Nicholas can scale...

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Digging Up Dinosaurs

By: A Aliki

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Where do museum dinosaur skeletons come from? In this introduction to archaeology, the author shows...

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Dinosaur Feathers

By: Dennis Nolan

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Through rhyming text, learn about the evolutionary link between million-year-old dinosaurs and...

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Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life

Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Life

By: Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Showcasing more than 90 remarkable fossils, such as a Tyrannosaurus skull, delicate fern leaf,...

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Dinosaurs Are Not Extinct: Real Facts About Real Dinosaurs

By: Drew Sheneman

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

When an asteroid crashed into Earth about 66 million years ago, it killed all the dinosaurs ......

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Dinosaurs Before Dark (Magic Tree House series)

By: Mary Pope Osborne

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Share adventures with Annie and her brother Jack when they accept missions from a magical library...

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Dinosaurs: By the Numbers

Dinosaurs: By the Numbers

By: Steve Jenkins

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Through infographics, illustrations, facts, and figures, readers will learn about the giants...

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Dinosaurs: The Biggest, Baddest, Strangest, Fastest

By: Harold Zimmerman, George Olshevsky

Age Level: 6-9 years old

The large format of this book is perfect for the theatrical, sometimes spectacular, full color...

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Dinotrux

By: Chris Gall

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Millions of years ago, huge, hungry prehistoric 'dinotrux' ruled the world. A terrible...

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Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs

By: Robert Sabuda, Matthew Reinhart

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Information appears alongside beautifully designed pop-up constructions in this overview of all...

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Feathered Dinosaurs of China

By: Gregory Wenzel

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Step back in time 124 million years, inside the world of the feathered dinosaurs to learn about...

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Fly Guy Presents: Dinosaurs

By: Tedd Arnold

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Fly Guy and Buzz are ready for their next field trip as they visit a natural history museum to...

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If the Dinosaurs Came Back

By: Bernard Most

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

What would happen if the dinosaurs returned? A small boy imagines a world where dinosaurs...

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Let’s Investigate with Nate: Dinosaurs

By: Nate Ball

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Travel with Nate Bell and a group of kids whose adventure begins at the Science Museum. They...

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Mad Scientist Academy: The Dinosaur Disaster

By: Matthew McElligott

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

The seven new students at Mad Scientist Academy include a werewolf, a robot, and other odd...

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Monster Fliers: From the Time of the Dinosaurs

By: Elizabeth MacLeod

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

While the dinosaurs walked the earth, pterosaurs (flying reptiles), ancient birds and other...

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My Book of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life: Animals and Plants to Amaze, Surprise, and Astonish!

My Book of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life: Animals and Plants to Amaze, Surprise, and Astonish!

By: Dean Lomax

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Young dinosaur lovers are introduced to an amazing range of prehistoric beasts through facts and...

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My Encyclopedia of Very Important Dinosaurs

By: DK

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Full of up-to-date facts and discoveries, this encyclopedia includes everything from an in-depth...

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My First Big Book of Dinosaur Facts

My First Big Book of Dinosaur Facts

By: Ruth Owen

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

This book introduces young readers to all key science and facts about dinosaurs in a fun...

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Prehistoric Actual Size

By: Steve Jenkins

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

What is it like to come face-to-face with the ten-foot-tall terror bird? Or stare into the mouth...

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The Bone Wars: The True Story of an Epic Battle to Find Dinosaur Fossils

By: Jane Kurtz

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Nonfiction

Discover the true story of the race between two paleontologists to find the best dinosaur...

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The Dinosaur Expert

By: Margaret McNamara

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

Join Mr. Tiffin's class as they learn about dinosaurs big and small, feathered and scaly, winged...

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The Dinosaur Museum

By: National Geographic

Age Level: 6-9 years old

This interactive guide takes you on a room-by-room tour of a natural history museum.You can open...

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The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins

By: Barbara Kerley

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Mr. Hawkins was a 19th century British artist with a passion for dinosaurs. This illustrated...

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The Magic School Bus: In the Time of the Dinosaurs

By: Joanna Cole, Bruce Degen

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Everyone's favorite science teacher is back as Ms. Frizzle takes her class on a journey...

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The Talking T. Rex (An A to Z Mystery)

By: Ron Roy

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Friends and amateur detectives Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose set out to help their friend whose...

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There's a Dinosaur on the 13th Floor

By: Wade Bradford

Age Level: 6-9 years old

Fiction

There is something a bit unusual about the Sharemore Hotel. When an exhausted Mr. Snore checks...

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Age Level: 9-12 years old

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Children's Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

By: Clare Hibbert

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

Full of fascinating facts and dramatic illustrations, and based on the latest paleontological...

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Dinosaur Empire! Journey through the Mesozoic Era

By: Abby Howard

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Fiction

Travel back in time to the age of the dinosaurs with fifth-grader Abby and her neighbor—Ms....

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Dinosaurs! (Explorer series)

By: Christopher Lloyd, Nick Forshaw

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Dinosaurs, endlessly fascinating, continue to be explored. Current information is presented in...

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Dinosaurs: A Visual Encyclopedia

By: DK

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

The history of all life on Earth, with a special focus on dinosaurs, featuring details of over...

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Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers (Science Comics Series)

By: MK Reed

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

In this graphic novel, learn all about the history of paleontology! This fascinating look at...

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Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time

By: James Gurney

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Fiction

In this fantasy classic, young readers imagine an isolated island inhabited by shipwrecked...

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Fossil Hunter: How Mary Anning Changed the Science of Prehistoric Life

Fossil Hunter: How Mary Anning Changed the Science of Prehistoric Life

By: Cheryl Blackford

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

With engaging text, photographs, and vivid paleoart, this biography introduces Mary Anning, the...

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Knights vs. Dinosaurs

By: Matt Phelan

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Fiction

Renowned for their courage, their chivalry, and their ability to fight mythical creatures, the...

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The Age of Dinosaurs: The Rise and Fall of the World’s Most Remarkable Animals

The Age of Dinosaurs: The Rise and Fall of the World’s Most Remarkable Animals

By: Steve Brusatte

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

Think you know about dinosaurs? Think again! Paleontologist Steve Brusatte brings young...

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The Clues Are in the Poo: The Story of Dinosaur Scientist Karen Chin

By: Jane Kurtz, Karen Chin

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

Embark on an exciting adventure with paleontologist Karen Chin as she hunts for treasure unlike...

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The Griffin and the Dinosaur: How Adrienne Mayor Discovered a Fascinating Link Between Myth and Science

The Griffin and the Dinosaur: How Adrienne Mayor Discovered a Fascinating Link Between Myth and Science

By: Marc Aronson, Adrienne Mayor

Age Level: 9-12 years old

Nonfiction

As a young student, Mayor wondered: Is the mythical griffin based on ancient people’s...

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