What do you think?
Rate this book
Did Dinosaurs Eat Pizza? Mysteries Science Hasn't Solved
Have you ever seen a dinosaur in your backyard? Of course not. But where did they go?
What did a Parasaurolophus sound like? Why did the Spinosaurus have enormous fins along its back? Do you ever wonder what a Tyrannosaurus rex ate for dinner? Perhaps it feasted on freshly caught Maiasaura. Or maybe it preferred slow-roasted Pterodactyl. Scientists aren't sure what a T. rex's meal was like, but they're fairly certain it didn't involve pizza.
There's a lot we don't know about dinosaurs. We may not have all the answers--but laugh your way through this fun-filled book and you'll discover the mysteries!
What did a Parasaurolophus sound like? Why did the Spinosaurus have enormous fins along its back? Do you ever wonder what a Tyrannosaurus rex ate for dinner? Perhaps it feasted on freshly caught Maiasaura. Or maybe it preferred slow-roasted Pterodactyl. Scientists aren't sure what a T. rex's meal was like, but they're fairly certain it didn't involve pizza.
There's a lot we don't know about dinosaurs. We may not have all the answers--but laugh your way through this fun-filled book and you'll discover the mysteries!
32 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2006
26 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
Read
April 29, 2020NONFICTION K-3
Title: Did Dinosaurs Eat Pizza? Mysteries Science Hasn't Solved
Author: Lenny Hort
How would you describe the plot? Full of fun information about dinosaurs.
How would you describe the characters?
What is the main conflict?
What is the main theme? To learn and be more informative about dinosaurs.
How would you describe the author’s style?
What point of view does the author use?
What lessons could you teach with this text?
W.2.7: Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a variety of print and/or digital sources on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations).
W.3.2.B: Develop the topic with facts, definitions, and details.
What is your overall assessment of the book? Very cute and informative and has some good illustrations.
Title: Did Dinosaurs Eat Pizza? Mysteries Science Hasn't Solved
Author: Lenny Hort
How would you describe the plot? Full of fun information about dinosaurs.
How would you describe the characters?
What is the main conflict?
What is the main theme? To learn and be more informative about dinosaurs.
How would you describe the author’s style?
What point of view does the author use?
What lessons could you teach with this text?
W.2.7: Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a variety of print and/or digital sources on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations).
W.3.2.B: Develop the topic with facts, definitions, and details.
What is your overall assessment of the book? Very cute and informative and has some good illustrations.
November 29, 2023
While I did not appreciate this book repeatedly saying the world is millions of years old, I did appreciate how much it talked about how a lot about dinosaurs we will never know because we can't see or observe them.
February 14, 2018
Did not even mention pizza in the book ☹️
December 4, 2018
Came through circ today and the cover intrigued me so I had to read it. Good book for those kiddos that love everything dino. Poses good questions that would get anyone thinking.
February 14, 2024
This is a cute book that grabs children's attention by using humor, facts, and the art about dinosaurs.
February 14, 2024
This book has a lot of information about dinosaurs and would be great for kids wanting to learn more about archeology.
August 9, 2023
Where's the substance? ( www.amazon.com/review/R2D7VXPQ8H787T/... ): 2/5
If you want a substantial children's dino book about what we do & don't know, get Kudlinski's "Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs!" (henceforth Boy) & read it in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Holtz's "Dinosaurs"). It helps that Kudlinkski & Schindler are 1) very well-read, as indicated by the bibliography, & 2) collaborators with experts (I.e. Brinkman, Butler, & Norell). I can't say the same about Hort & O'Brien. As far as I know, Hort's "Did Dinosaurs Eat Pizza?: Mysteries Science Hasn't Solved" (henceforth Pizza) has neither a bibliography nor any expert collaboration & it shows in the lack of substance. In this review, I list the 3 main indications of that lack of substance.
1) Unlike Boy (which has a roughly chronological format, beginning with the discovery of Iguanodon & ending with the discovery of the Chinese feathered dinos), Pizza consists of a bunch of so-called "Mysteries Science Hasn't Solved" scattered all over with no apparent rhyme or reason. Each mystery is illustrated with dinos doing things we know they didn't do, so maybe Pizza's title was supposed to tie all the mysteries together. However, since Pizza's content has nothing to do with eating pizza, it's just a confusing mess.
2) Unlike Boy (which is illustrated with mostly-good cartoon dinos & page-by-page comparisons of what people used to think vs. what we think now), Pizza is illustrated with mostly-bad cartoon dinos (E.g. O'Brien's T. rex is basically a cartoon version of Solonevich's Antrodemus: https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2013... ). Not only are the dinos themselves bad, but they make a lot of the text misleading: It's claimed that "different scientists can disagree by as much as [20 or 30] tons in estimating weights"; While this is technically true when it comes to sauropods, it's illustrated with a Styracosaurus (which weighed between 1 & 4 tons) outweighing an entire family farm.
3) Unlike Boy (which has mostly-accurate text that uses multiple lines of evidence to show why we think what we think), Pizza has a lot of misleading or wrong text, partly because of the aforementioned illustrations, & partly because it refers to many non-mysteries as mysteries (hence the "so-called" in indication #1 above). This is especially apparent in the text about T. rex & birds (E.g. See the Hort quotes, which fail on many levels).*
*They fail to get the facts straight (E.g. Giganotosaurus & Spinosaurus were larger; To quote Hendrickson, "I feel very sure, as do 99 percent of all dinosaur paleontologists, that T. rex was a predator"); They fail to understand how ecology works (Quoting GSPaul: "The idea that animals as big as most theropods were true scavengers is ecologically unfeasible"); They fail to understand how evolution works (If "birds evolved from dinosaurs," then they ARE "considered dinosaurs"); They fail to understand that, "scientifically, traditions are an idiot thing" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7Hml... ); They fail to understand that, traditionally, "the word dinosaur" refers to non-bird dinos, not "extinct dinosaur species of the Mesozoic Era" (which include many bird species).
Quoting Hort: "Tyrannosaurus rex may have been the largest meat eater ever. But the jury is still out on whether T. rex mostly hunted for its food or mostly scavenged to find dinner that was already dead."
Quoting Hort: "Most scientists now agree that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and a convincing case can be made that, as long as birds survive, dinosaurs aren't really extinct. Since there is still some disagreement on whether birds should be considered dinosaurs, I have followed tradition in using the word dinosaur to refer only to extinct dinosaur species of the Mesozoic Era."
If you want a substantial children's dino book about what we do & don't know, get Kudlinski's "Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs!" (henceforth Boy) & read it in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Holtz's "Dinosaurs"). It helps that Kudlinkski & Schindler are 1) very well-read, as indicated by the bibliography, & 2) collaborators with experts (I.e. Brinkman, Butler, & Norell). I can't say the same about Hort & O'Brien. As far as I know, Hort's "Did Dinosaurs Eat Pizza?: Mysteries Science Hasn't Solved" (henceforth Pizza) has neither a bibliography nor any expert collaboration & it shows in the lack of substance. In this review, I list the 3 main indications of that lack of substance.
1) Unlike Boy (which has a roughly chronological format, beginning with the discovery of Iguanodon & ending with the discovery of the Chinese feathered dinos), Pizza consists of a bunch of so-called "Mysteries Science Hasn't Solved" scattered all over with no apparent rhyme or reason. Each mystery is illustrated with dinos doing things we know they didn't do, so maybe Pizza's title was supposed to tie all the mysteries together. However, since Pizza's content has nothing to do with eating pizza, it's just a confusing mess.
2) Unlike Boy (which is illustrated with mostly-good cartoon dinos & page-by-page comparisons of what people used to think vs. what we think now), Pizza is illustrated with mostly-bad cartoon dinos (E.g. O'Brien's T. rex is basically a cartoon version of Solonevich's Antrodemus: https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2013... ). Not only are the dinos themselves bad, but they make a lot of the text misleading: It's claimed that "different scientists can disagree by as much as [20 or 30] tons in estimating weights"; While this is technically true when it comes to sauropods, it's illustrated with a Styracosaurus (which weighed between 1 & 4 tons) outweighing an entire family farm.
3) Unlike Boy (which has mostly-accurate text that uses multiple lines of evidence to show why we think what we think), Pizza has a lot of misleading or wrong text, partly because of the aforementioned illustrations, & partly because it refers to many non-mysteries as mysteries (hence the "so-called" in indication #1 above). This is especially apparent in the text about T. rex & birds (E.g. See the Hort quotes, which fail on many levels).*
*They fail to get the facts straight (E.g. Giganotosaurus & Spinosaurus were larger; To quote Hendrickson, "I feel very sure, as do 99 percent of all dinosaur paleontologists, that T. rex was a predator"); They fail to understand how ecology works (Quoting GSPaul: "The idea that animals as big as most theropods were true scavengers is ecologically unfeasible"); They fail to understand how evolution works (If "birds evolved from dinosaurs," then they ARE "considered dinosaurs"); They fail to understand that, "scientifically, traditions are an idiot thing" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7Hml... ); They fail to understand that, traditionally, "the word dinosaur" refers to non-bird dinos, not "extinct dinosaur species of the Mesozoic Era" (which include many bird species).
Quoting Hort: "Tyrannosaurus rex may have been the largest meat eater ever. But the jury is still out on whether T. rex mostly hunted for its food or mostly scavenged to find dinner that was already dead."
Quoting Hort: "Most scientists now agree that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and a convincing case can be made that, as long as birds survive, dinosaurs aren't really extinct. Since there is still some disagreement on whether birds should be considered dinosaurs, I have followed tradition in using the word dinosaur to refer only to extinct dinosaur species of the Mesozoic Era."
June 16, 2011
Of all the dinosaur books my daughter and I have read so far this may be our favorite. It packs a lot of information into very readable bursts of text. The illustrations are somehow both amusing and informative, and truly complement the text in that several proved very helpful in explaining some of the more difficult concepts to my 4-year-old.
My daughter in particular loves the idea that while we know a lot about dinosaurs already, there are many more things we don't know. She's convinced she is going to be the one to solve that perplexing mystery of how the very largest dinosaurs were able to lay their eggs without having them shatter when they hit the ground.
It helps that you can't read for very long about dinosaurs without stumbling into examples of kids making important discoveries. For example, did you know that a 14-year-old boy discovered the 95% complete skeleton of Bambiraptor, one of the key specimens helping paleontologists understand the link between dinosaurs and birds? My daughter does, and she's already making plans for our next vacation to a dig site in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana (although in truth something like the Montana Dinosaur Trail might work better).
(Review originally published on my blog -- Caterpickles: Scientific and Linguistic Engagement with a 4 Year Old Mind, caterpickles.com)
My daughter in particular loves the idea that while we know a lot about dinosaurs already, there are many more things we don't know. She's convinced she is going to be the one to solve that perplexing mystery of how the very largest dinosaurs were able to lay their eggs without having them shatter when they hit the ground.
It helps that you can't read for very long about dinosaurs without stumbling into examples of kids making important discoveries. For example, did you know that a 14-year-old boy discovered the 95% complete skeleton of Bambiraptor, one of the key specimens helping paleontologists understand the link between dinosaurs and birds? My daughter does, and she's already making plans for our next vacation to a dig site in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana (although in truth something like the Montana Dinosaur Trail might work better).
(Review originally published on my blog -- Caterpickles: Scientific and Linguistic Engagement with a 4 Year Old Mind, caterpickles.com)
September 26, 2008
Cute illustrations.
You will not learn anything about dinosaurs.
You will learn a tiny bit about what we don't know about dinosaurs.
A good book for a budding skeptic -- it really puts a spotlight on how little we actually know about dinos and how much of what we claim to know is actually just speculation.
You will not learn anything about dinosaurs.
You will learn a tiny bit about what we don't know about dinosaurs.
A good book for a budding skeptic -- it really puts a spotlight on how little we actually know about dinos and how much of what we claim to know is actually just speculation.
April 30, 2008
Pretty informational about dinosaurs. Pictures are fun and Gabe liked the idea of a dinosaur eating pizza.
May 11, 2012
This is a wonderful idea for a dinosaur book (and there are SO MANY of them, so being this original is difficult), and the illustrations are a blast. I would have loved this as a kid.
December 5, 2012
Kinda nice to have a kid-level book that admits what science doesn't know yet. And that there are some things we may never know.
May 31, 2016
Good introductory text for Bookworms storytime. Great, entertaining illustrations!
April 13, 2010
Finally, a book that tells us what we DON'T know about dinosaurs.
January 21, 2014
Very cute! I bet Tim still believes that dinosaurs did eat pizza. He's so silly.
April 7, 2017
Of all the dinosaur books my daughter and I have read so far this may be our favorite. It packs a lot of information into very readable bursts of text. The illustrations are somehow both amusing and informative, and truly complement the text in that several proved very helpful in explaining some of the more difficult concepts to my 4-year-old.
My daughter in particular loves the idea that while we know a lot about dinosaurs already, there are many more things we don’t know. She’s convinced she is going to be the one to solve that perplexing mystery of how the very largest dinosaurs were able to lay their eggs without having them shatter when they hit the ground.
It helps that you can’t read for very long about dinosaurs without stumbling into examples of kids making important discoveries. For example, did you know that a 14-year-old boy discovered the 95% complete skeleton of Bambiraptor, one of the key specimens helping paleontologists understand the link between dinosaurs and birds? My daughter does, and she’s already making plans for our next vacation to a dig site in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana (although in truth something like the Montana Dinosaur Trail might work better).
My daughter in particular loves the idea that while we know a lot about dinosaurs already, there are many more things we don’t know. She’s convinced she is going to be the one to solve that perplexing mystery of how the very largest dinosaurs were able to lay their eggs without having them shatter when they hit the ground.
It helps that you can’t read for very long about dinosaurs without stumbling into examples of kids making important discoveries. For example, did you know that a 14-year-old boy discovered the 95% complete skeleton of Bambiraptor, one of the key specimens helping paleontologists understand the link between dinosaurs and birds? My daughter does, and she’s already making plans for our next vacation to a dig site in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana (although in truth something like the Montana Dinosaur Trail might work better).
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews