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FREE INTERACTIVE STORY · AGES 5–7

The Big Footprints: a free interactive story

Giant footprints lead along the river in Dinosaur Valley, and a baby long-neck dinosaur is crying by the water. Your child chooses how to find its family: follow the prints, climb up high or listen. Each ending has a real fact card.

  • Reading age 6
  • 1 short chapter, 1 choice and 3 endings
  • About 2 minutes
  • Adventure

Read the story

Choose your hero

Paint it your way

Chapter 1The big footprints

A painted valley with a long-necked dinosaur by a lake, mountains with waterfalls and flying reptiles in the sky.

Finn stepped through the ferns into Dinosaur Valley. Waterfalls splashed down the mountains.

In the mud by the river were footprints. Each one was as big as a paddling pool!

Then Finn heard a small sound. “Meep. Meep.” It came from behind a rock.

A baby dinosaur with a long neck was sitting all alone. “I am Pebble,” it sniffed. “I can’t find my family.”

Finn looked at the big footprints, then at the tall rocks, then at the quiet valley.

What happens next is up to your child

How should Finn find Pebble’s family?

Questions for grown-ups to ask

Did you spot it?

  1. EasyHow big were the footprints?Answer: As big as a paddling pool.
  2. MediumWhy was Pebble sad?Answer: Pebble had lost its family.
  3. HarderWhich way do you think was the quickest way to find the family? Why?Answer: Any answer with a reason, such as climbing up to see the whole valley.

Talk about it

  • If you found a giant footprint, what would you think had made it?
  • Pebble felt better when the family came. How do you feel when you find someone you lost in a busy place?

Words to talk about

footprints
The marks a foot makes in mud, sand or snow.
valley
Low land between hills or mountains, often with a river.
reptile
An animal with scaly skin, such as a lizard, a snake or a dinosaur.
nuzzled
Pushed gently with the nose to show love.

Reading it together

The Big Footprints is written at Litsee’s reading level for age 6: short sentences, a clear problem and a small two-step solution. The three endings each use a different way of finding something out: following clues, looking from high up and listening.

Every part of the story has a real dinosaur fact card from the Litsee app’s fact bank, with its source. Read the card together and ask whether it surprised your child. Many children are amazed that birds are dinosaurs.

After reading, make footprints of your own in flour, sand or mud, and guess which animal made each one. It is a hands-on way into the clue-following that the story is built on.

About this story

Reading age
6 (ages 5–7). Written for Litsee’s reading level for age 6, where sentences are mostly 5–9 words long.
Length
1 short chapter, 1 choice and 3 endings. Each way through is 134–144 words.
Reading time
About 2 minutes for a 6-year-old reading on their own, at Litsee’s pacing of 60 words a minute for that age. Reading aloud to your child is usually quicker.
Book band
Roughly Turquoise to Purple, if your child’s school uses book bands (schemes differ; see our book bands guide).
Characters
Pebble, a baby long-neck dinosaur, Pebble’s family, a flying reptile
Theme
Adventure

About this story

Written for litsee.com by the Litsee team, The Big Footprints was drafted with AI help and checked against Litsee’s reading level for age 6. Its dinosaurs facts quote the app’s fact bank word for word.

Pictures of the Dinosaur Valley: from the Litsee app, painted with AI image tools and hand-picked by the Litsee team. “Read to me” plays an AI voice recorded in advance.

Last updated: .

Questions parents and teachers ask

Is The Big Footprints scary?

No. There are no fierce dinosaurs: Pebble is a gentle plant-eater, the flying reptile is helpful, and every ending finishes with the family together.

Are the dinosaur facts true?

Yes. Each fact card is quoted from the Litsee app’s fact bank, and each names the source that says it, such as the Natural History Museum.

Can my child choose who the story is about?

Yes. Finn leads The Big Footprints unless your child picks another of the 15 heroes above it. That hero’s name then fills every page, and “Put them in the pictures” paints them into the Dinosaur Valley. Nothing is typed, saved or sent.

Now let your child make a story of their own.

In Litsee, your child creates the hero, picks the world and chooses what happens next in an illustrated story that is read aloud.

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See plans and pricing · How Litsee works

Try it in LitseeYour child creates the hero, picks the world and chooses what happens next, in an illustrated story that is read aloud.Start your free trialUse it in classRead an illustrated, narrated story together on the whiteboard, and let the class choose what happens next.Start a free classroom trialSee Litsee for schools