When Dinosaurs Came With Everything - Elise Broach

Dad

11 Mar 2026 — 1 min read

Rating: 9/10

I really liked this one. The art is great. The tone is hilarious, I absolutely love the dialogue and the characters. The story is silly but is played completely straight-faced, which I always love. And then it builds to a very fun and clever climax with a good resolution, but the ending feels completely empty. It's definitely hard to end a book that comes to such a climax, especially in the space you have for the children's book format, but I feel like this is just so unbelievably weak it deserves a call-out. Obviously I don't have some awesome suggestion for how to end it better, this is "book reviews by dad", not "books by dad". But I'm sure that the author could do better given all the other great work she did here.

The Runaway Bunny - Margaret Wise Brown

Rating: 9/10 I like this book a lot! The story is great fun, I love the little escalations and one-uppings. And a nice little ending. The art is definitely something special, find the bunny on every page.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? - Eric Carle

Rating: 7/10 Ah, you know, this one doesn't really do it for me. I do enjoy the art quite a lot, and the "plot twist" at the end is amusing enough, especially since I'd totally forgotten it in the 30-ish years since I

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - Laura Joffe Numeroff

Rating: 8/10 Well, I love a lot about this. The story is fun, I am a fan and I liked the ending. There's a good amount of of whimsy and silliness in it, and it's well complemented by the art - it's nothing

Frederick - Leo Lionni

Rating: 9/10 First, shout-out to the art: I love these pictures. They're beautiful and evocative and everything I want from my children's book art. Just a delight to drink it all in as you read the story. The story is solid too, it's

Read more

The Runaway Bunny - Margaret Wise Brown

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? - Eric Carle

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - Laura Joffe Numeroff

Frederick - Leo Lionni