James Skofield

~ from the Library

Skofield's DETECTIVE DINOSAUR is at the high Second Grade reading level. [ Lexile: 330L ]

The book's artwork is done in nice watercolors with expressive characters. What else is nice is that there are 3 separate stories: The Case of the Missing Hat; The Case of the Squeaking Shoe; and Night Patrol. Each story makes for a natural break if you are doing the reading; or gives children some experience with books that have short stories.

There is quite a bit of text in this book. 831 words. The font is large but not the super huge print you find in books for First Graders. Some of the pages have images with a half-page of text, but a few pages are all text. Here is some sample text from a half-page.

Then he put on his shoe
and took a step.
There was no squeak.
"Hooray!" said Detective Dinosaur.
"My shoe is no longer angry!"


I think this is a book that would be fun to read to younger children. The stories are quite silly and the artwork is happy. Be prepared to cringe a bit as the silliness is a bit nonsensical.

There's a lot of dialog, by the way. I know that one of my children went through a phase where they disliked reading dialog. If your own child is like that you might want skip this series, or read it to them.… (meer)