When I’m Big
Ella Bailey
Flying Eye Books

In an ancient forest a small, single egg hatches, from it emerging a weeny dinosaur, Fern by name. Having surveyed her surroundings she deduces that she’s no bigger than the smallest fern frond.

Pondering upon the question of what she’d be like when she’s big, she spies a massive dinosaur gobbling the leaves of the trees towering above her. A bite of one of the leaves doesn’t tingle her taste buds so off she goes to investigate further. Next stop is a clearing but the loud honking of a dinosaur herd there sends her searching for a more peaceful place.

So what about the river? Could she be a subaquatic dinosaur perhaps? Not with a body like hers seemingly …

Fern keeps wandering and searching for a dinosaur that might perhaps be her like her grown up self, but none of the pointy horned ones, those with bumpy armour on their backs, nor the feathered kind feel right for her. Will she ever know: maybe she’ll not be big at all.

Feeling thoroughly downcast she bumbles on till all of a sudden there in front of her is something she recognises:

Fern has come full circle but something has changed …

A realisation dawns: whatever the future holds, it’s a matter of wait and see …

A sweet, warm story of finding a place in the world and being content in the here and now, prehistoric style.

Youngsters will delight in the telling, the gorgeous illustrations and exploring the back endpapers, which will send them back to the beginning of the book for a re-read to search for fourteen dinosaurs Ella has depicted thereon.