Flying Giants

This small, nearly square book in the Dino World! series, a new addition to the existing I Love Reading umbrella series, cleverly connects children’s fascination with dinosaurs to the fun of reading the long complex names and sounding out the syllables. Each double-page spread is devoted to one of the “flying animals that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.” Its name appears in bold type along with a pronunciation guide and a few, brief lines of text per page, all set against clear, handsome illustrations in bright colors that show the creature soaring over its habitat. Some fliers, contrary to the book’s title, were relatively small. Then there was the Quetzalcoatlus (“kwet-zal-koh-AHT-lus”), the largest flying animal ever found, with a wingspan longer than many buses. With adult help, children can point to the words and sound out the phonetic syllables of the names. Then they will want to read more, perhaps starting with the two titles suggested at book’s end. A brief glossary is also appended.