There’s a fair lot of dinosaurs for one volume, but low production values push this to the back of the herd.
A 30-member dino gallery, with clumsily Photoshopped scenes, founded on the well-worn “if dinosaurs came back” premise.
Said premise does have enduring child appeal—though West manages to dim even that by assembling pictorial elements without using them in any imaginative way or even integrating them. With notable lack of visual logic, for instance, he shoehorns into busy street scenes life-sized, realistically detailed T. Rex and other toothy predators that don’t appear to notice the human prey at their feet. Furthermore, in his sometimes–washed-out pictures, a herd of Protoceratops runs across beach sand without leaving tracks, several figures appear to float slightly above the ground, and a huge Carnotosaurus rams headfirst into a car without denting it. Nor do the people looking on, all of whom have the generic plastic look of figures from midbudget video games, usually show more than mild anxiety. On facing pages, two to four sentences of general notes on each dino’s size, diet and special features include an unproven claim that Altirhinus could blow up its nose like a balloon, repetitious phrasing (three dinos are found in “quieter parts of town”) and a reference to a busker who has been trimmed out of the accompanying illustration.
There’s a fair lot of dinosaurs for one volume, but low production values push this to the back of the herd. (summary fact chart) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-77085-220-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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