Inspiring Young Readers

posted on 30 Jul 2026

There Were Dinosaurs Everywhere illustrated by Britta Teckentrup with text by Camilla De La Bedoyere

Can there ever be too many books for younger readers about dinosaurs? The answer is, of course, no. A new generation of youngsters, who are completely fascinated by these creatures from our past, is always coming along, and, just as importantly, scientists and scholars are constantly making new discoveries and updating what we know about them.

The important thing isn’t whether the subject matter is exciting – it is – but how well the information is presented to its chosen audience. This is where There Were Dinosaurs Everywhere scores two big hits.

Firstly, the text by Camilla De La Bedoyere is excellent at taking the masses of available information, the complex evolutionary data, the archaeological evidence and the huge stretches of time covered by the existence of dinosaurs across the globe and condensing them down into something that’s a comfortable cross between a story and a straightforward taxonomy of the dinosaur species. It’s a story that brings us into the modern world and the fact that we now understand that birds are the direct ancestors of the great beasts from 60 million years ago. Cunningly enough, the interest of the reader is refocused on most pages by the presence of a little quiz that requires close study of the illustrations.

That brings me on to the second big hit of this book – the illustrations which are by the very excellent and quite prolific German children’s book artist, Britta Teckentrup. It would be tempting to say that the fabulous quality of the illustration is the star of the show but to be honest the artwork and the text work together in a sort of symbiosis that adds up to more than the sum of its parts. But both are immeasurably enhanced by the organisation of the information into clear sections with what amounts to a sort of colour-coding of the pages to keep each section easily identifiable. When you’re dealing with lots of information for younger readers it’s vital that the page doesn’t seem scrambled and this book seems to have set out to avoid that at all costs and has greatly benefitted from that decision.

This is a book that will be great for the personal collection of any youngster who is becoming intrigued by the dinosaur story but it would also be welcome in a school or class library where I’m certain it would be popular.

Available now from Big Picture Press, you will be able to get a copy from your local independent bookshop – who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have it on their shelves.

Terry Potter

July 2026