“Think about Velociraptor when you see birds run across the grass.” But look elsewhere for visuals that are out of the...
A colorful gallery of dinos and their relatives, made from paint-sprayed paper collage and paired to questions and comments in large type.
Originally published overseas as Big Noisy Book of Dinosaurs (2009), this version features rearranged illustrations and an abridged text that, for all its short, simple sentences, is still well-stocked with mouth-filling monikers. "Mamenchiasaurus was a huge plant eater.” “Carcharodontosaurus was a giant meat eater.” “Eoraptor was about the same size as a child like you.” The information is all standard-issue. Along with accurately indicating that pterosaurs and certain sea creatures were reptiles but not true dinosaurs, the author provides requisite explanations of how dinosaurs went extinct, how some became fossils, and how some had birdlike characteristics. The art just comes along for the ride. Colors look dull, animals occasionally look at one another but seldom interact, and poses are nearly all side views. There is little to no sense of scale. An image of Eoraptor is larger than the Brachiosaurus on the opposite page, a pile of poop nearly rivals an adjacent Diplodocus for bulk, and because Teckentrup (or the designer) fits multiple full or near-full bodies on each spread at various removes and with little detail, the giant dinos often don’t look all that big.
“Think about Velociraptor when you see birds run across the grass.” But look elsewhere for visuals that are out of the ordinary. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-910126-52-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Sturdy split pages allow readers to create their own inventive combinations from among a handful of prehistoric critters. Hard on the heels of Flip-O-Saurus (2010) drops this companion gallery, printed on durable boards and offering opportunities to mix and match body thirds of eight prehistoric mammals, plus a fish and a bird, to create such portmanteau creatures as a “Gas-Lo-Therium,” or a “Mega-Tor-Don.” The “Mam-Nyc-Nia” places the head of a mammoth next to the wings and torso of an Icaronycteris (prehistoric bat) and the hind legs of a Macrauchenia (a llamalike creature with a short trunk), to amusing effect. Drehsen adds first-person captions on the versos, which will also mix and match to produce chuckles: “Do you like my nose? It’s actually a short trunk…” “I may remind you of an ostrich, because my wings aren’t built for flying…” “My tail looks like a dolphin’s.” With but ten layers to flip, young paleontologists will run through most of the permutations in just a few minutes, but Ball’s precisely detailed ink-and-watercolor portraits of each animal formally posed against plain cream colored backdrops may provide a slightly more enduring draw. A silhouette key on the front pastedown includes a pronunciation guide and indicates scale. Overall, a pleasing complement to more substantive treatments. (Novelty nonfiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7892-1099-9
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Abbeville Kids
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
Eye candy and intellectual nourishment alike for newly independent readers.
A classic informational early reader gets a substantial, long-overdue update.
Kirkus criticized the 1985 edition for conveying outdated and misleading information—chivalrously leaving the stodgy colored-pencil illustrations unmentioned. All of that has been addressed here. Revised by the late Milton’s brother Kent, the text highlights or at least names over a dozen dinos, from the diminutive Citipati to the humongous Argentinosaurus, “as big as a house, longer than three buses, and as heavy as thirteen elephants!” Prehistoric contemporaries that were not dinosaurs also get nods, as do modern paleontology, the great extinction and the continued survival of birds: “So the dinosaur days go on.” Tempesta’s cover painting of a brightly patterned Triceratops being attacked by a T. Rex with a feathery spinal fringe opens a suite of equally dramatic group and single portraits. They feature mottled monsters viewed from low angles to accentuate their massiveness and reflect current thinking about feathers and coloration.
Eye candy and intellectual nourishment alike for newly independent readers. (Informational early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-37923-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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