Do you remember being 6-years old? Did you ever have that dream that you had a pet dinosaur?

I remember 6-year-old me.  I used to imagine dinosaurs running alongside the car on long road trips, or even just the drive across town to the local Walmart.  If I squinted, I could almost see them.

 

If you’re a kid (or kid at heart) who’s ever dreamed of having a pet dinosaur, then you’re at the right place.

If you’re not really into the whole dinosaur thing, but your child, niece, nephew, kid-down-the-street is…then you might want to hang around anyway.

But I’m not excluding anyone. 😛 If you have a passion for the beauty of life, humanity, and the world around us- and your kinda curious about what you see- then it’s awesome to have you here. 🙂

 

So what’s exactly going on here?

The short version?  This is the official website for a children’s picture book series set in Pete’s Paleo Petshop, a fictional place where people can meet a prehistoric friend to take home.  I’m both writer and illustrator, and I try to illustrate the dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals as accurately as possible with the latest scientific papers (while still being cute).

The website will be a way to receive updates on my progress on the books, get behind-the-scenes goodies, and generally have fun with the world.  As a dinosaur-loving kid I would’ve loved the chance to have a pet dinosaur, so this is the next best thing. 🙂 As a reader, I always love really immersing myself into that world, and I hope to give you that same experience.

 

Pete’s Paleo Petshop, where you can meet a prehistoric friend to take home. 

The first book in the series we’ll meet Danny and his family on their way to Pete’s shop, where they hope to find a quiet, little dinosaur.  Not easy to find in an age of giants!

This book will have animals from the Jurassic period, the “golden age” of dinosaurs.  We get a lot of famous giants during this time, like the long-necked Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus, the meat-eating Allosaurus, and the spike-tailed Stegosaurus.  But there are many other animals that usually get overlooked.

Beaver-tailed mammal Castarocauda.  Tiny and fluffy Pterodactylus.  Toothy flyer Rhamphor-

Ok, ok, let’s pause a second.  I know what you’re thinking.

No, you won’t have to be trying to pronounce those names all the time.  It can be a real headache to sound out Castarocauda for the 20th night in a row.  My parents must have incredible patience, because we had a dinosaur book that all the critters where labeled on the page…I’m sure they wanted to chuck the book out the window on more than one occasion.

No, here at the shop the kids give the critters names like Steggy, Cassie, and Alfred.  All formal names will be at the back of the book, or perhaps here on the site.

 

This is where it gets fun for you as readers, teachers, and parents. 

Since I’m in the creation phase, there are lots of opportunities for you to have a say in how things get done.  You can vote on critter color patterns, book covers, make species cameo suggestions…even choose a favorite from say…fancy feathery feet on some prehistoric bird?  Domestic chickens have all sorts of cool feather styles, and I’ll be illustrating similar changes on a few of our “domesticated” critters.

A great opportunity for teaching how domestication changes how an animal looks! 🙂

 

If you want more, here are a few places you can visit.

 

Thank you for joining me on my little corner of the internet.  I really hope you enjoy your visit.  If anything I can do brings a smile to your day, then that’s what matters. 🙂

3 thoughts on “Do you remember being 6-years old? Did you ever have that dream that you had a pet dinosaur?

  1. Hi Patricia, I happened upon your corner of the internet while looking for preschool dinosaur books, and I am so glad that I found this! Your illustrations are absolutely lovely and I really appreciate the effort that you’ve put into accuracy. It’s so wonderful to see dinosaurs portrayed in both a scientifically accurate and narrative way. I feel that often our options for children’s dinosaur books are either an encyclopedia or a storybook that treats dinosaurs as monsters/imaginary friends/dragons instead of as animals. I work in education at my local science museum and am always on the lookout for good early childhood dinosaur books. To be honest though, I’m more excited about this for me. When I was a young dinosaur nerd – not that long ago, we’re talking like 15 years here, and still – I didn’t have anything nearly this wonderful. Thank you for sharing your creativity with the world, I look forward to seeing your future progress!

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    1. Thank you so much! I’m so glad that you enjoy the illustrations. Really it’s precisely because of the problem you describe that I started doing this. I wanted books for my children (and myself, let’s be honest here lol) that are both educational and cute. Like you said, it seems like our only choices are rubbery-looking “imagine-a-saurs”in picture books, or those computer graphic monstrosities that pose as encyclopedias or field guides.

      If you watch my blog you’ll see my progress in completing these. I hope to finish a collection of short stories soon, and I’ve been posting a chart on how close I am to finishing that. 🙂 I’ve discovered that picture books can take a long time to complete, so the short stories are something I can complete and publish a bit sooner for everyone.

      Thank you so much for stopping by, and especially for sharing your thoughts with me. It truly means the world to me that someone like you has found what I do and appreciates it the same way I do. I hope I can provide more for you! I’d be delighted to see you in the comments! 🙂 Thank you again! 😀

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