Dinosaur in the Park

For lower primary to junior secondary students

There's a dinosaur in the park! is an almost wordless picture book in which a young boy's imagination takes flight. The dinosaur-like rubbish bin in the park becomes a living beast, and they go on a glorious romp which they may decide to repeat the next day.

The Story of a Picture Book tells the story of the genesis and creation of the picture book, from that moment when the author's young son rushed up to his father saying 'I saw a dinosaur in the park!'. Thinking that this might be a good idea for a book, the author made notes and filed them away. It was several years before the story took form and a manuscript was written. The Story of a Picture Book follows the path from idea to manuscript, through various revisions, to the illustrator. The publishing and printing processes are explained. There are descriptions of how the flat sheets that contain the book's pages are produced, then go to the bookbinder where they are folded and the book stitched and bound. The process is illustrated with copies of the various revisions of the story, with photographs of the illustrator at work, and of the printing process itself.

There's a dinosaur in the park! was published in 1981, and a 10th anniversary edition was published in 1992 after many reprints. The book is still available.

Era Publications celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2012. It began as a partnership of six people in 1971, but soon afterwards became solely owned by Rod and Sandra Martin. Originally publishing solely educational texts for teachers, it has expanded and now produces school readers, picture and chapter books. The company's strong focus is on literacy and English language teaching at the primary school level. Many of the picture books are also produced in large format for classroom reading. Era Publications' books have been published in many languages and countries. Its books have won many awards, and the company itself has won numerous achievement awards in Australia and overseas.

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