A Review of the “Great Book of Dinosaurs”
Young dinosaur fans aged from five years and upwards will enjoy this fact-filled, hardback dinosaur book entitled the “Great Book of Dinosaurs”, which contains over two hundred illustrations. Written in a nice, big font, this colourful dinosaur and prehistoric animal book will help encourage young readers, the 124 pages are well-laid out and the text consists of lots of short, clear paragraphs aimed at encouraging young people with their reading skills.
The Front Cover of the “Great Book of Dinosaurs”
Aimed at young readers.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
“Great Book of Dinosaurs”
The contents are set out in six chapters, the first of which introduces the dinosaurs and explains how these reptiles first evolved. There is also a comprehensive “family tree” that shows the taxonomic relationships between the various different types of creatures that make up the Dinosauria. Despite the book’s title, flying reptiles (pterosaurs) are extensively covered as well as dinosaurs and there is a handy timeline that explains how the main types of pterosaur evolved and when they lived. The second chapter covers the evolution of the sauropods, dinosaurs such as Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus and Brachiosaurus. Other chapters are entitled “Fearsome Hunters”, “Armoured Plant-eaters” and “Two-Legged Runners”. The pterosaurs are covered in a chapter towards the end of this book in a section called “Monster Fliers”.
More than two hundred well-crafted illustrations really bring the Mesozoic Era to life and there is lots of information about dinosaur discoveries and palaeontology. Diagrams of skeletons highlight the main differences between the major groups of dinosaurs and there is a handy “How do I say that” section which spells the names of these prehistoric creatures phonetically, thus helping with pronunciation. This guide will prove especially helpful to those parents, grandparents and guardians who read this book with their young charges.
An Informative and Enjoyable Read
Packed full of facts and figures.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Unique Fact File Layout
The best-known dinosaurs are given a unique fact file that explains when these animals lived, how big they were and what they ate. For those readers who want to use this as a reference book, there is a clearly laid out index at the back. The pterosaurs are certainly featured and there is plenty of information on different types of flying reptile, creatures such as the spectacular Phobetor, Pteranodon and perhaps the largest pterosaur of all – Quetzalcoatlus.
Key words and phrases are explained very well using simple language and this hardback will prove to be very popular with children. It was pleasing to see that maps had been included which show where the fossils of certain dinosaurs were found. There is even a double page spread that displays a pair of tyrannosaurs feeding – T. rex illustrated in glorious, gory colour.
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A well-written and cleverly illustrated dinosaur book that helps readers learn about the lives of some of the biggest and fiercest creatures known to science.
How difficult would it be to include the names of the artists who do the illustrations of the books you review??
Would be most appreciated!
Thanks for your input, unfortunately this is not as easy as it sounds. The teachers at Everything Dinosaur, when they review a book, are mainly concerned with assessing is it suitable for the age group recommended, we are keen to review such books from an educationalists perspective, checking out things such as how easy is it to read, the layout, sentence construction, appropriate content etc. The Great Book of Dinosaurs is written by the highly respected science writer Michael Benton and we know the publishers quite well, it is a book read by both children and adults but there is no information in the book regarding the artists or illustrators. This is unfortunate, but it does occur quite a lot I’m afraid. There is the usual “rights reserved” statement but no information or credits as to the illustrative content. This is a shame as some of the illustrations in this hardback are really good. Sorry we can’t be more helpful in this instance.
It is of course John Sibbick who did all the colour illustrations for this book… the lack of indication of the illustrator shows the contempt that the publishing world has for this profession of passionate artists.