Book Review: "Draw-a-saurus" by James Silvani

I received a free Kindle edition copy of "Draw-A-Saurus" by James Silvani from Netgalley.com

I am always on the lookout for good drawing books for my daughter who is interested in drawing.  When I saw "Draw-A-Saurus" on netgalley, I decided to give it a try.  There were some things I liked and some that I didn't like about this book.

I liked that it actually told and showed the steps to actually draw the different kinds of dinosaurs.  I also liked that it gave information about adding texture and backgrounds to your drawing.  The sections telling about the different kinds of dinosaurs were also nice.

I really didn't like the whole deal about the dinosaurs being around "millions of years ago" and "evolving" from other kinds of animals. There was odd capitalization, which I think they intended to be fun and cute, but along with the stray mismatch of odd letters throughout the book, it made it hard to read.  There were several labels for pictures that were misplaced and sentences mixed up.
For example:
                  Note:   There are no hind small mouth.
                              toes like with theropods.

Most of the mixed up sentences I could figure out, but that one, I'm not so sure!  The odd letters, misplaced labels and mixed up sentences could be formatting issues, but it created difficult reading.  Finally, in an attempt to be funny (I assume) the author threw in statements about dinosaurs skipping, having adaptations for opening cans, etc, but it is just confusing to the reader what things are truthful.  Although, these silly things are just as true as the parts about "evolving" and "millions of years".

I would recommend this book with the proviso of skipping all the in between writing and just looking at the parts that give the steps of how to draw the dinosaurs.  I really don't understand why they couldn't just the drawing parts and leave out the evolution stuff.

You can purchase "Draw-A-Saurus" for Kindle for $12.99

• Print Length: 160 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (September 9, 2014)
• Sold by: Random House LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00J1IQW5O
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•  or paperback (list price $18.99)

• Age Range: 7 - 10 years
• Grade Level: 2 - 5
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (September 9, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385345801
• ISBN-13: 978-0385345804