Dinosaurs are always a good thing to have on hand.
I'm rereading Dinotopia. Its AMAZING. I had forgotten all the stupendously warped Old Master-style imagery, the exquisitely rendered watercolors, and the lush atmospherics....not to mention that the story line is just marvelous; a recently widowed Victorian explorer and his son are shipwrecked on a lost island, where dinosaurs have survived and formed a (more or less) utopian symbiotic low-tech society with shipwrecked humans and their descendents over thousands of years. I remember when I was a kid that idea seemed so archetypally satisfying. I wish I could love the sequals half as much, but they are unfortunately and bizarrely dumbed down....and, as compelling as the idea of dino-robots is and always will be, it just didn't work for me....especially since they were supposedly Atlantean. *GAG*. Anyway, dinosaurs are rad, and the first book in the Dinotopia trilogy is exquisite. The other two....well, at least they're pretty. Read them to your four year old.