School Library Journal Starred Review (Sun Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2013)

Gr 1-3 From a cowering Microraptor , who "would barely be able to look a chicken in the eye," to an Argentinosaurus towering over a squirming pile of surprised-looking elephants (17, all told), Judge poses 12 prehistoric creatures with modern people or animals in compelling support of the observation that dinos came in a great range of sizes. In her lively, engaging watercolors, the extinct exemplars also display great ranges of colors and patterns in their feathers or scales, plus distinct dispositions: a quartet of shy Leaellynasaura , for instance, anxiously tries to blend in among a flock of same-sized emperor penguins, while Ankylosaurus , plainly in a bad mood, scowls as it batters whole cars out of its way with its clubbed tail. Along with identification for each dinosaur, the author adds brief but memorable verbal comparisons ( Torosaurus "had a 10-foot skull and horns that grew as tall as a first grader"). She closes with a rousing double gatefold group portrait and leads to further print and web resources. Outstanding company for Steve Jenkins's Prehistoric Actual Size (Houghton Harcourt, 2005), with even more sizable storytime potential.— John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New York City

ALA Booklist

Lots of little kids love dinosaurs. They are mythic in proportion and detail, with the added allure of having been real. Judge (Bird Talk, 2012) seems never to have grown out of this fascination, and in her latest, she applies her masterful technique to her favorite extinct animals. Creatures like Velociraptor and Argentinosaurus are drawn side-by-side with living species, contextualizing their scale. Meanwhile, delightfully silly interactions among the creatures enliven the fun. Judge's always noteworthy artwork is spectacular: the delicately mottled watercolors admirably depict musculature and texture, while the posture and expressions of the animals could not be more full of life and personality if they had been drawn from living specimens. Libraries that already own a copy of Steve Jenkins' Prehistoric Actual Size (2005) may be reluctant to purchase another book about the size of dinosaurs, but the two complement each other ile Prehistoric Actual Size gives the reader a close-up view, How Big Were Dinosaurs? pulls back to show the entire animal in context. Super stuff about super creatures, large and small.

Horn Book (Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Dinosaurs came in a range of shapes and sizes. Judge helps us understand the variations in size by creatively placing dinosaurs in juxtaposition with familiar modern-day animals and objects. Both illustrations (in pencil and watercolor wash) and descriptions draw on the familiar: Protoceratops sidles up to a baby rhinoceros; Ankylosaurus menaces an SUV. A foldout contains a to-scale illustration of all the dinosaurs together. Reading list, websites.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Judge (Born to Be Giants) revisits familiar territory with this lighthearted but factual look at dinosaur size. Moving from smallest to largest, her illustrations juxtapose 12 dinos with modern-day objects and animals for comparison. A close-up of a fierce microraptor is followed by a scene showing the same microraptor cowering in the presence of a crowing rooster. Slightly anthropomorphized facial expressions increase the cuteness factor of the realistically rendered creatures, and humorous comparison scenarios abound: a struthiomimus is shown in the lead at a horse race, and a woman with a broom tries to keep a tsintaosaurus from devouring her garden. The concise narrative jauntily moves through the tongue-twisting dinosaur names and their dimensions (-Even velociraptor, a dinosaur that fills our imagination with its flesh-ripping claws and powerful jaws, was only the size of a dog-). Concluding notes explain how fossils are formed and how scientists use them to figure out dinosaur size. The notes open into a four-page gatefold showing all of the prehistoric and modern creatures alongside each other, giving readers a feel for their relative size. Ages 6-9. Agent: Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt. (Aug.)