DINOSAURS

Dinosaurs are ever popular among kids of all ages, but in the board-book market, they are rarely portrayed with the majesty that makes them so fascinating in the first place. In offering after offering, they’re drawn in cute caricatures or gimmicky, textured renditions that don’t at all suggest a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. While such renderings are certainly nonthreatening, young readers would be hard-pressed to extrapolate any sense of the primal majesty and scale of these beasts, which have fascinated for generations. Therefore, the colorful, massive reptiles depicted herein, with their armor, horns, plates, talons, and teeth, are a breath of fresh air and a return to honest and untamed portrayals of these fascinating prehistoric beasts. One forgivable conceit employed to reduce the likelihood of nightmares is the occasional word balloon and bad pun: Feathered Scansoriopteryx, for instance, announces, “I’m a real early bird.” The primeval landscapes are lush with vegetation; landscapes and skies feel both alien and familiar. The book features 11 dinosaurs, of which only two, Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex, are familiar favorites. Portraits of dinosaurs in situ alternate with pages naming the dinosaurs shown, with pronunciation and fun facts about the creatures in question (e.g., “Shunosaurus had a very long tail”) and dinosaurs in general.