Smithsonian Sticker Creations: Dinosaurs & Under the Sea

By Ruth Tepper Brown
Published on 14 July 2015
Published by Silver Dolphin Books
Source: Publisher
From the mighty T. rex to the towering Apatosaurus, Smithsonian Sticker Creations: Dinosaurs offers kids a glimpse into the dinosaur age through a fun and innovative format. The 64-page activity book comes with 5 oversized dimensional stickers and more than 200 reusable stickers, providing children with a unique and interactive learning experience. After reading about their favorite dinosaurs, children can place the colorful stickers in the removable frame to create their own prehistoric scene. With interesting information, detailed illustrations, and a hands-on format, Smithsonian Sticker Creations: Dinosaurs takes children on a spectacular tour through the fascinating world of dinosaurs.

Guys. Guys. Guys. There is a dinosaur stickerbook currently in my possession. My inner 8 year old is having a freak out that this is possible. Then again, my inner 8 year old probably thinks I'm a pretty good human so there's that. I need to remember that more often. I digress. Dinosaur sticker book. That is why we came here today. And there are a bunch of stickers. Whoo-boy.

What I like about this stickerbook as compared to other stickerbooks (Full Disclosure: friends keep finding dinosaur stickerbooks and buying them for me, I have a wide variety of experience with this particular genre,) is that the stickers are part of interactive learning. You put the pieces of the spinosaurus on the spinosaurus while you're learning about what those pieces were for. Or you put dinosaurs in their proper regions of the world.It's awesome and full of easily digestible trivia. Like, for example that the Stegosaurus was only a little faster than a human walking.

For the curious, yes some of the dinosaurs are pictured with feathers and yes they talk about that and ongoing discoveries. They don't come right out and say all dinosaurs absolutely had feathers since, well, they can't really do that for every single dinosaur there was. But for the ones we have evidence of feathers for they do, and to be honest this is the first time I've seen dinosaurs illustrated with feathers that they didn't look...weird? Like there was a lot messed up about the prehistoric world, and I can accept a lot of it but so many of the Dinos with feathers illustrations I've seen just haven't looked plausible. Yes, I know that's my personal ongoing struggle with the reality of dinosaurs, and yes I am the first to admit that I am absolutely not okay with anyone putting feathers on my Stegosaurs and will remain willfully ignorant and stubborn on that point but there comes a kind of point where you have to consider what might've been an actual hunting benefit as far as placement and pigmentation and– and I have gone completely off the point. Yes. Feathers exist in this book.

The one thing I'm not so sure about is the "framed playscene." It doesn't seem very sturdy and I can't imagine very many children in the 5+ range being alright with having a piece of plastic impeding their play and the whole thing is's gonna get torn apart. I know you can slide it out and such but I can't see that framed anything lasting for very long. The 3D stickers are awesome. Really, really awesome. So cool.

And if you or the child in your life are not that into dinosaurs or just want to have more stickers (and hey, I get that. To each their own.) There is also dun dun duuuuuuun:

By Emily Oachs
Published on 14 July 2015
Published by Silver Dolphin Books
Source: Publisher
With Smithsonian Sticker Creations: Under the Sea, young explorers will embark on an underwater adventure to learn about life beneath the waves. Smithsonian Sticker Creations: Under the Sea’s hands-on format allows children ages 5 and up to explore the amazing diversity of the sea while interacting with more than 200 reusable stickers and 5 oversized deluxe dimensional stickers. After learning about their favorite sea creatures, children can create their own underwater scene by placing the stickers in the removable framed ocean scene. The beautifully illustrated sticker activity book gives young ocean explorers a creative opportunity to learn about all types of incredible sea creatures!

All that cool stuff I said about the dinosaur one basically applies to the under the sea one. Just replace dinosaurs with sea creatures or relevant language of your choice. The feather facts obviously don't apply but the 3D sticker stuff does. These are both high quality cool things and I absolutely think they'd be lovely learning tools no matter the age of the person doing the learning.

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