Sculptor Stephen Czerkas specializes in making life-sized models of dinosaurs. This book shows how he works, from the first small clay model to a full-size clay sculpture, a latex cast, a fiberglass and steel replica made in sections, and finally the assembly and mounting for a museum exhibit. Most of the color photos show ``Steve'' at work in his studio, at fossil digs, or in the museum preparing dinosaurs for two large traveling exhibits sponsored by the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles County. While gleaning odd dinosaur facts and a better understanding of how scientists reconstruct the past, readers will also enjoy the behind-the-scenes look at a man who combines science, art, and engineering in an unusual career. Index. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: April 22, 1993
ISBN: 0-395-62363-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In Ray’s latest and most deceptively understated biography yet, she profiles Earl Douglass, a fossil hunter who made spectacularly good on his patron Andrew Carnegie’s instruction to find “something big.” Indeed he did: Exploring a remote area in Utah that eventually became part of Dinosaur National Monument, in 1908 he came upon a trove of fossils containing remains of a massive 75-foot-long Apatosaurus, a juvenile Camarasaurus that is the most complete sauropod skeleton found so far, and dozens of other dinos large and small. Using a palette of warm sandstone browns and yellows, Ray depicts the skinny, bespectacled Douglass and his co-workers exploring rugged landscapes and then carefully excavating fossils from them. Closed out with a set of context-setting afterwords, a dino-gallery and a map of the modern National Park, it’s a tale that doesn’t need hype—though the title’s two words splashed across and filling an entire opening spread will get young viewers’ juices flowing from the get-go. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-374-31789-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
O’Brien celebrates 14 prehistoric monsters by presenting each with a modern object or a human, thereby giving readers information about the size of these giants. Dinosaurs, in full-color and full-snarl, dominate the double-page layouts as they frolic and menace an airplane, fire truck, tank, automobile, and assorted people. For every creature, O’Brien provides the name, its meaning, and a brief line of text. Three of the creatures presented are not dinosaurs at all—Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur, Phobosuchus, a relative of the crocodiles, and Dinichthys, a bony fish—which the author mentions in the back matter. The illustrations are not drawn to scale, e.g., if Spinosaurus is really 49 feet long, as the text indicates, the car it is shown next to would appear to be 30 feet long. Readers may have to puzzle over a few scenes, but will enjoy browsing through this book, from the dramatic eyeball view of a toothy Tyrannosaurus rex on the cover to the final head-on glare from a Triceratops. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5738-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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