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Dino Lab
4th Bestselling Children's Book Series of all Time —The New Yorker In this interactive book, YOU are on the adventure of a lifetime! You thought that dinosaurs were extinct, but that was before you visited the Dino Lab. Can your best friend Homer the dog help you sniff them out? Dino Lab by Anson Montgomery takes YOU on a pre-historic adventure of a lifetime! Your 6-8 year old reader will visit the Dinosaur Research Lab on the same day that two baby dinos go missing! Choose Your Own Adventure Dino Lab is an interactive adventure book in which YOU decide what happens next. You thought that dinosaurs were extinct, but that was before you visited the Dino Lab. Choose Your Own Adventure is the bestselling gamebook series of all time. Empowering generations of children through choice, it is widely commended for its appeal to reluctant readers.
80 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2016
2 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Anson Montgomery
19 books6 followersAfter graduating from Williams College with a degree specialization in ancient history, Anson Montgomery spent ten years founding and working in technology-related companies, as well as working as a freelance journalist for financial and local publications. He is the author of four books in the original Choose Your Own Adventure series, Everest Adventure, Snowboard Racer, Moon Quest (reissued in 2008 by Chooseco), and CyberHacker as well as two volumes of Choose Your Own Adventure - The Golden Path, part of a three volume series. Anson lives in Warren, VT with his wife, Rebecca, and his two daughters, Avery and Lila.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 10, 2017
I am going to do a CYOA camp unit with my 1st and 2nd graders soon, and we are going to use this book. Its cute, they'll like it. For that age group, Id recommend it.
August 28, 2023
8/27/2023 3.5 stars rounded up. Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.
8/28/2023 a Choose Your Own Adventure in the Dragonlark series for younger readers, so no death endings (tho the one pterodactyl ending was pretty ominous, IMO!)
I love the CYOA company's kid's line, which makes the classic game books that much more accessible, to both younger readers and the squeamish. I'm a big fan of interactive books, and Dragonlark allows kids to get into the subgenre without worrying about or being suddenly confronted by any bad endings. It amuses me how the slightly more advanced books actually do celebrate death endings on their covers, as their readers have most likely grown into that gruesome stage by then. My kids have certainly gotten there, clamoring for horror movies and other scary entertainment. Fortunately, books like this still serve as a welcome respite from the creepy stuff they consume otherwise.
My kids and I actually read this book together on a family trip this past weekend. Hilariously, my 12 year-old and I both got the same ending on our first, separate pass-throughs. My eldest 9 year-old twin was mostly interested in all the different dinosaur lore, as he is the most science-minded of my kids, so he really appreciated the section on dinosaur facts included in the back (my youngest is still not much of a reader, alas.)
The book itself is about YOU, the reader, who with your little sister Maria are visiting the compound where your aunt works. Aunt Sarah is a paleontologist at Dino Lab, as it's called, a sort of miniature Jurassic Park in a dome. The dome is necessary for the gases that keep the dinosaurs docile. When an accident sets two of the baby dinos free, you and Maria must help the scientists figure out how to find them and then sufficiently calm them down for retrieval.
It's a very cute premise, with gorgeous illustrations by Keith Newton. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't get a cover credit given how much work he put into this book! The pictures are colorful and engaging, and do an amazing job of setting the scene for all the shenanigans.
There were, I felt, several missed opportunities here, particularly with the cool doctors you're introduced to in the first part who never make an appearance again later. But kids will likely greatly enjoy these larger-than-life adventures, and will eagerly go back in search of different endings (as I definitely did!) I also continue to appreciate the effort put into making the protagonist as gender- and racially-ambiguous as possible: it really broadens the appeal of the series, and tells kids not typically marketed to by sff and games that they're welcome in these spaces, too.
Dino Lab by Anson Montgomery was published November 1 2016 by Chooseco and is available from all good booksellers, including Bookshop!
8/28/2023 a Choose Your Own Adventure in the Dragonlark series for younger readers, so no death endings (tho the one pterodactyl ending was pretty ominous, IMO!)
I love the CYOA company's kid's line, which makes the classic game books that much more accessible, to both younger readers and the squeamish. I'm a big fan of interactive books, and Dragonlark allows kids to get into the subgenre without worrying about or being suddenly confronted by any bad endings. It amuses me how the slightly more advanced books actually do celebrate death endings on their covers, as their readers have most likely grown into that gruesome stage by then. My kids have certainly gotten there, clamoring for horror movies and other scary entertainment. Fortunately, books like this still serve as a welcome respite from the creepy stuff they consume otherwise.
My kids and I actually read this book together on a family trip this past weekend. Hilariously, my 12 year-old and I both got the same ending on our first, separate pass-throughs. My eldest 9 year-old twin was mostly interested in all the different dinosaur lore, as he is the most science-minded of my kids, so he really appreciated the section on dinosaur facts included in the back (my youngest is still not much of a reader, alas.)
The book itself is about YOU, the reader, who with your little sister Maria are visiting the compound where your aunt works. Aunt Sarah is a paleontologist at Dino Lab, as it's called, a sort of miniature Jurassic Park in a dome. The dome is necessary for the gases that keep the dinosaurs docile. When an accident sets two of the baby dinos free, you and Maria must help the scientists figure out how to find them and then sufficiently calm them down for retrieval.
It's a very cute premise, with gorgeous illustrations by Keith Newton. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't get a cover credit given how much work he put into this book! The pictures are colorful and engaging, and do an amazing job of setting the scene for all the shenanigans.
There were, I felt, several missed opportunities here, particularly with the cool doctors you're introduced to in the first part who never make an appearance again later. But kids will likely greatly enjoy these larger-than-life adventures, and will eagerly go back in search of different endings (as I definitely did!) I also continue to appreciate the effort put into making the protagonist as gender- and racially-ambiguous as possible: it really broadens the appeal of the series, and tells kids not typically marketed to by sff and games that they're welcome in these spaces, too.
Dino Lab by Anson Montgomery was published November 1 2016 by Chooseco and is available from all good booksellers, including Bookshop!
May 25, 2021
I like the older ones better. All the storylines were good endings. My 4 year old enjoyed it though.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews