The Good Dinosaur (Read-Along Storybook and CD)

This is a great story - my son loved the movie and we got him this book for one of his Christmas gifts and he couldn't care less about anything else but this book. He asks me all the time to turn on the CD as he sits there and listens while turning the page. Great illustrations and audio.

I got this for my son to listen to. He's only 2 so his attention span isn't that great. But for me it was more of buying for the future kind of purpose. The book itself is decent quality story is good. I'm sure kids will love it. The audio cd is good quality, I just popped it into my laptop and let my son listen to it while I flip the pages, he seems to enjoy it.

This is a terrific little book for the age group and the CD reads the book at a nice clear pace. The story itself becomes rather long for one reading I think but may hold the attention since it is full of drama (that works excellently in film of course.) Sort of a Lion King in reverse. Creates an opportunity for children to imagine quite different scenarios.

Nothing wrong with the product really, but the story sucked. It was long, boring, and stressful. We decided we couldn't give this to our 3 year old because it was such a downer book. I get that Disney stories aren't all sunshine and roses, but this one was really depressing. The pictures alone would probably give him nightmares. First the dinosaur, Arlo, is sad because he feels like a pathetic failure. Then his dad dies in a river and he almost dies. Then his family is hungry. Then he takes it out on the boy, Spot, and loses his family. Then he learns spot is an orphan and they become friends, just to say goodbye in the end when arlo goes back to his real family who finally accept him and spot leaves with some strangers he met. Just didn't feel like the most appropriate way to show death and grief to my little guy. To top it all off, it was loosely packed with some heavy woodworking tools and ceramic mugs in a giant box with no covering, plastic wrap, or any packing materials to keep the stuff from smashing around and bending the pages. Very disappointed on all levels.

These CD's are ideal for driving in the car with children. My grandchildren enjoy them more than having a smartphone or tablet. I keep six Disney CD's in the car's CD player and the books in the back seat pocket. We've marked all the books with the CD player slot #. They call out the slot # and were ready to go. My car's kept neat and clean and everybody's happy.