Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
One Day with Dinosaurs
Leslie Calimeri · 2025
71/100
👍 Worth It
A warm debut from an author-illustrator drawing on her own son's dino obsession — Sam's rainy-day adventure into a gentle Jurassic world has real heart and a premise kids will recognize. The Chanticleer longlist nod is meaningful for a first book from a small press, and the gentle, friendly dinosaurs keep things squarely in imagination territory rather than scary. Thin critical record means we're leaning on the premise's charm and the award recognition rather than deep evidence of craft, so expectations should be calibrated for a debut.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety95
substance65
craft68
originality65
accuracy72
hype60
age-fit85
human-eye70
Penny’s verdict71
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