The book has sold over six million copies and has been translated into a dozen languages. It inspired two sequels by Syd Hoff: "Happy Birthday, Danny and the Dinosaur!" and "Danny and the Dinosaur Go to Camp". It also won the distinction of "New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year". It has since become an "I Can Read!" designated series of short-story books.
The following tropes include:
- A Dog Named "Dog": Dinosaur is called just "Dinosaur" by everyone who knows him, and never thinks to give himself a name.
- All Animals Are Dogs: The dinosaur amusingly behaves like this when Danny is given a new pet puppy, his attempts to mimick its tricks result in a bush and a park bench being flattened though.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Its not clear which genus or species Dinosaur is. He resembles an Apatosaurus, but has opposable thumbs and standing over 100 feet tall, would dwarf even a Real Life Argentinosaurus in size. He does vaguely resemble a Plateosaurus, an ancestor of long-necked dinosaurs that did stand on two legs and had hands with thumbs, but as mentioned above, he is much much bigger than any known dinosaur.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the book "Too Tall", Dinosaur rescues a crane worker in distress and realizes that being huge is great after all.
- Big Eater: Its hard to appease the Dinosaur's appetite when huge meals to us, are only one or two bites to him.
- Big Fun: Dinosaur loves to have fun, and is always willing to try out new games and activities with Danny and the school children.
- Cruella to Animals: Adverted. Danny is worried his next door neighbor Betty doesn't seem to like animals, and therefore wouldn't like Dinosaur. Turns out she loves animals, she's just allergic to their fur, and since Dinosaur has none, they can happily spend time together.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Dinosaur looks feminine, but insists they are male.
- Friend to All Children: From playing hide-and-seek to letting them ride him.
- Gentle Giant: The massive Dinosaur wouldn't even hurt a fly, and takes great care to watch where he is stomping.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: While very happy to be a sauropod, Dinosaur falls into depression, feeling his giant size obstructs him from having more fun, that is until he puts that size of his to good use.
- Intellectual Animal: The huge dino is intelligent, and can talk. Though given his great age, being able to speak our language should come as no surprise.
- Klingons Love Shakespeare: Danny's best friend is fascinated by human culture, as dinosaurs back then were only into stomping and eating.
- Living Relic: Dinosaur may very well be the Last of His Kind. note
- Long Neck: A given, as Dinosaur is a herbivorous sauropod.
- Museum of the Strange and Unusual: Adverted. There's nothing much extraordinary about the local museum, except that it houses the only known living dinosaur in the world as one of the exhibits.
- Our Giants Are Bigger: Dinosaur is pretty huge, towering over the town at the same height as a crane.
- Really 700 Years Old: Dinosaur states his age is 100 million years old.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The townsfolk aren't particularity bothered by a living dinosaur frolicking and stomping around them.
