Between the lines: children of all ages love to read about dinosaurs

My daughters and I joined a dozen of their friends on a visit to the Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs exhibition at the Hong Kong Science Museum during the last school holidays. Our expectations were low but, to our surprise, it was a world-class educational experience that kept the group entertained for an entire morning.

There were robotic dinosaurs and a "petting zoo" where the children took turns prodding a stick at an animated Agilisaurus that responded with short forward lunges, swishing its tail or baring its teeth.

The reconstruction of a fossil dig showed the important work done by palaeontologists. Scattered throughout were interactive games and electronic presentations designed to appeal to tech-savvy children.

Dozens of dinosaur fossils, including a replica of the 30-metre-long Daxiatitan that was discovered on the mainland, made up the finale.

Shaheen Bilgrami's Amazing Dinosaur Discovery is the perfect book to prepare ahead of this outing. It tells the story of Tom, a boy who loves dinosaurs, visiting a museum with his father. The book is arranged with the left-hand side showing pages from Tom's scrapbook to provide readers with trivia about each dinosaur.

The dinosaur fossils are on the right-hand pages, with clever acetate sliding panels. Pull out the panel and the fossilised bones are transformed into a full-colour creature from 100 million years ago in its natural environment.

"Bones. Bones. We look for bones. We look for the bones of dinosaurs." The work of palaeontologists is simply explained in Byron Barton's Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones.