One of the joys of being an author/illustrator is when I'm asked to sign books.   If I have time, I love to do a drawing as well.  Once while signing books in a bookstore, a mother asked me to personalize the book for her son, Matthew.  Instead of "To Matthew," she asked me to write "To Matthewsaurus."   Another time, a father asked me to write "To Tri-Sara-Tops" for his daughter, Sara.  This happened more and more.  I began to think: How about a book with children naming the dinosaurs after themselves?

In A Dinosaur Named After Me, I have fun sharing many facts about dinosaurs and playing with their names.  For example, a little boy named Andrew says, "My favorite dinosaur is Anodontosaurus.  This armored dinosaur's name means 'toothless lizard,' because its jaw was discovered without any teeth.  I was reading about this dinosaur with my grandma.  Because I'm losing my baby teeth, she said she would call this dinosaur ANDREW-dontosaurus."

I dedicated this book "To Harcourt Brace's very own DIANE-osaur, my editor, Diane D'Andrade."  Diane has been my editor since 1988 and has contributed so much to all of my books.  On the back of A Dinosaur Named After Me, I even get a chance to create a dinosaur named after me.  It's a BERNARD-osaurus, a dinosaur with a mustache (a drawing that I love doing on my school visits)!