The Dinosaur Diner and Other Poems by Paul Sidey

This hardback book contains twenty-four quirky poems about dinosaurs. It has a fairly sizeable cast including a fun-loving camarasaurus, a postie tyrannosaurus, the swotty iguandon, the struthiomimus who lives in  a penthouse, the parasaurolophous with strange dress sense and many more. The accompanying comical ink illustrations by Susan Hellard,  mirror the text well. This illustrator has a great portfolio which is worth a visit. Click on the link under the cover. The Dinosaur Olympics, one of the longer poems is certainly worth a read.
http://www.arenaillustration.com/Artists/thumbsSusanHellard.html

The Dinosaur rap is very entertaining:

If you wanna be a reptile you gotta stay cool
Snarl at your parents, don't go to school
Talk with your mouth full and pick your nose
Who's gonna stop you, do you suppose?

Get down my man and blow your horn
We're gonna party until dawn
There's no need to read so don't bother to write
It hurts your brain - hey let's go fight

If you mess with me you're gonna get zapped
Who says funky dinosaurs can't adapt?
If the world explodes, OK, no sweat
Let's boogie in the ruins to a rap cassette.

This could well be the anthem for a couple of students in my class this year.  Anyway, this will join the poetry section of our little classroom library and is a great reference point for looking at rhyme schemes and rhyming couplets.

Friends and Brothers by Dick King-Smith

A simple book about two brothers. William is finding it difficult to get along with his younger brother, Charlie. he thinks he is a show-off, asks far too many questions and is always saying the word "absolutely." It is a little bit dated but anyone who finds younger siblings pesky might relate to this little book. Some of it would be considered politically incorrect these days. Their mum threatens to hit William if he hits Charlie again. There are seven chapters in the book and each chapter is basically a separate story. The chapter called Snapdragon is quite a nice story about Charlie's pet beetle which he has named Snapdragon. One day William is looking in the matchbox where Charlie keeps him and accidentally lets him go...