Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones Hardcover – October 18, 2007

If you can, get the ones with the CD of author reading the story. She does a superb job with voices and music and sound effects. My grandson and I both LOVE these stories.

The Skippyjon Jones books have been favorites of all my kids, and The Big Bones is definitely their favorite of them all! Read this out loud with your kids, do the voices, and have a ton of fun.

We absolutely love Skippy John Jones and this book is written and illustrated just as beautifully as the rest. However, I purchased this book and cd for my children for Christmas and when we recieved it the cd would not play nor was it even recognized as a cd in any player in our home. We sent it back for a replacement ( which Amazon is wonderful about - they even pay for shipping!)When we recieved our second book the cd was in the same condition that the first one was in. I called Amazon. The service was perfect except the employee was very difficult to understand as he had a very thick Indian accent. So my problem was really not solved and I ended up just returning the book without getting a replacement. I would recommend trying to find out if this problem has been fixed before ordering the book.

Skippyjon Jones books are a huge favorite in our house mommy daddy and 4 year old all enjoy these books

Reading this silly picture book made me fall in love with this series. I'm now a huge fan of the Siamese cat who thinks he's a chihuahua.The plot (Skippy's desire to be a paleontologist leads to adventures confronting rumba-dancing dinosaurs) is only part of the book's appeal. It's great to read out loud, because the words and sentences are so silly. For example, when Skippy's friends the Chimichangos rush out to dance with the dinosaurs, "Skippito" is worried: "You will be crushed like crispitos beneath the dinos' toes-titos!"The illustrations have lots of hidden details. A drawing of Skippyjon's room includes toy dinosaurs holding pickles, dinosaur doodles on the wall and "Skippy's Big-Boy Chart" taped onto the wall complete with checks and gold stars.The book also comes with an audio CD of the author reading the story, using different voices for each character. Schachner sometimes breaks into song. My favorite is the one she sings to the tune of the old Frito Bandito commercial: "Oh, my name is Skippito Friskito, And I hunt for the dinosaur-ito, With gigantico ears, That's been buried for years, Under layers of sediment-ito!"Silly, silly, silly. And what a treat!

Okay, I have read some of the other reviews, both positive and negative. I recently added this Skippyjon Jones book to our collection as my son loves cats, loves dinosaurs, loves silly stories, and loves the idea of paleontology/digging up bones. This book did seem a little harder to read out loud (i.e., I was glad I was doing it instead of my 90-year-old father who is a retired plant physiologist who usually reads well out loud but had just struggled a bit with a pop-up book of dinosaurs), might have been the Spanglish. Yes, some of the goofy jokes were a bit odd, like the frequent mention of bad breath from eating pickles (I've been around a lot of cats and never once met one that would eat a pickle) and the stop-drop-and-roll (i.e., like when you are on fire) reference tied with extinction. Yes, the bullying thing made me cringe a little bit, especially since my son's elementary school has some fierce anti-bullying policies and his taekwando grandmaster stresses the importance of not allowing someone to bully you, but it did provide an opportunity to talk about bullying and stealing and being a naughty little "boy."All of that taken into consideration, Skippyjon Jones books are full of goofy plays on words and situations that no normal cat would get himself into. That is part of the point and most of the fun! The silliness is exactly why we love the books. Do they always make sense? No but also kinda. Are they guaranteed to make you laugh and/or shake your head? Yes. If you want a scientific or factually accurate book, maybe you should try something like National Geographic. But if you'd like a little silly to penetrated the pages of your child's books and stimulate their imagination, this is a good option. The real key, though, is reading it well out loud, with different voices, changes in inflection, clapping with the songs, and all that stuff because it is fun and silly, just like this book.

This story is great even for mom reading it. It cracked me up. The pictures are funny and wording is good. Especially if you get the CD it helps to know how to read it-quickly with a Spanglish accent. The kids laughed at me. You need an accent to read aloud or it doesn't make sense! The wording is like a song it's very cute.

Skippyjon is so much fun! My daughters are early teens and they still come running when they hear me reading one to my son. Judy Schachner does and excellent job of reading the story. So fun, even a parent can enjoy.

love all of the Skippy jon Jones books!