Book review: 'Dining With Dinosaurs: A Tasty Guide to Mesozoic Munching' is a nice sampler of dino facts

Confession: I really don't know when the Mesozoic age was. I had to look it up in this book, "Dining With Dinosaurs: A Tasty Guide to Mesozoic Munching." And then I realized it wasn't an age, it was an era.

Duh.

So it's actually the Mesozoic Era, not the Mesozoic Age. Silly Liz.

But that kind of tells you how much I knew about dinosaurs going into this book. Now, I should know more. Lots more. Because, for several years, I had a dinosaur-infatuated little boy. And really, that's the main reason I agreed to review this book. For my boy.

Then I realized it's pretty entertaining and educational. So win, win!

Image from National Geographic

"Dining With Dinosaurs" give a lot of interesting, broad facts about plant-eating, insect-eating, meat-eating, and even trash-eating dinosaurs who lived millions of years ago. Instead of organizing this book according to the years in which scientists think the dinosaurs lived, "Dining with Dinosaurs" is sectioned off according to how these ancients ate. Food is the definite theme throughout this book and it's a fun way to learn about dinosaurs.

This full-color book has fun illustrations and little extras that reminded me of "The Magic School Bus" series. Little jokes pervade the book and there are even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches hidden throughout.

There are two things I wish this book had. It would have been nice if the pronunciations for the dinosaurs' names would have been on each page, instead of at the end of the book. Also, seeing a timeline, so readers could pinpoint when each dino lived, would have been enlightening.

However, despite these few flaws, "Dining With Dinosaurs" is a fun read for young kids who are learning about these ancient animals.

"Dining With Dinosaurs" is a clean book with nothing offensive in it.

Author and illustrator Hanna Bonner is a trilingual author and illustrator who was raised on the Spanish island of Mallorca.