Unwieldy for library use; just right for little hands and big (really big) laps.
A separate small hardcover volume about small dinosaurs nestles in the front cover of a much, much larger album of their humongous cousins.
Each part of this Italian import features 18 spread-filling dinosaurs in side views, tricked out by Cosanti in loud, saturated colors or patterns and posed for scale with a remarkably calm white chicken against the same tropical backdrop. The effect is a bit surreal, as the dinos and the prehistoric foliage have the thick, rounded look and fuzzy surfaces of stuffed toys, but the weight and bulk of the looming creatures in the superoversized volume—and the lithe grace of most of their often feathered smaller relatives in the diminutive one—do come through vividly enough to make strong impressions on viewers. Each portrait comes with an identifying label and a descriptive comment. Along with being admittedly speculative, several of the latter are afflicted with translation issues. Still, even expert dinophiles are likely to find mixed in with the usual suspects a surprising number of unfamiliar species, such as Magnapaulia, Therizinosaurus, and Parvicursor. In like packaging, The Big Book of Giant Sea Creatures and the Small Book of Tiny Sea Creatures portrays in the two parts 36 brightly hued, often exotic saltwater denizens, from the ½-inch anemone shrimp to 110-foot blue whale and 130-foot giant siphonophore. An intrepid clownfish (sometimes, understandably, hard to spot) provides a sense of scale in each portrait, and accompanying comments offer notes on sizes, habitats, and like helpful points.
Unwieldy for library use; just right for little hands and big (really big) laps. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62795-157-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Shelter Harbor Press
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A winning, and necessary, update to Kathleen Zoehfeld’s Terrible Tyrannosaurs (2001, illustrated by Lucia Washburn).
Tyrannosaurus rex poses with 10 recently discovered relatives in this toothy portrait gallery.
Speaking as “Dr. Steve,” co-author Brusatte—paleontologist and tyrannosaur lover—explains to young dinomanes how the titular tyranno (formally dubbed Qianzhousaurus, nicknamed for its long nose) was unearthed and reconstructed before going on to introduce nine other 21st-century discoveries. Each comes with a general description, a “fact file” of basic statistics, a collective timeline that neatly groups contemporaries, and a realistically posed and rendered individual portrait in a natural setting. Following a simple but effective activity involving chalk, a tape measure, and a very large expanse of concrete, an equally cogent infographic at the end illustrates size extremes in this prehistoric clan by juxtaposing images of a human child, a like-sized Kileskus, a full size T. Rex, and a (slightly smaller) school bus. The dinos display a wide range of coloration and skin and feather patterns as well as distinctive crests or other physical features, but Dr. Steve, who is white, is the only individualized human figure until a closing album of snapshot photos.
A winning, and necessary, update to Kathleen Zoehfeld’s Terrible Tyrannosaurs (2001, illustrated by Lucia Washburn). (pronunciation guide, glossary, museum list) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-249093-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
Budding biologists and others with an interest in what’s inside will be entranced.
Multilayered overlapping cutouts provide an unusually detailed 3-D look at T. Rex’s innards—or at least what can be deduced about them from the fossil record.
Visible through a big acetate window on the front cover, the cutouts peel back with each turn of a sturdy page—highlighting, for instance, realistically depicted arm and leg bones, major muscle groups, or reconstructions of pulmonary and other systems. Notes around the central die cut, embellished with painted illustrations, cautiously explain what researchers know or believe from modern survivals or related fossils about each bit or system. Young dinomanes get not only a vivid anatomy lesson from this, but also a clear notion of how profoundly paleontology is based on educated guesswork: “By studying modern animals with this body structure, such as giraffes…we can guess how T. rex’s body adapted….” Other entries in the Inside Out series present similar deconstructions of a (particular) Egyptian Mummy, a (generic) Human Body, and Sharks, with a melodramatically posed great white as exemplar. Models, most of them children, in side illustrations for Human Body are diverse in age and race.
Budding biologists and others with an interest in what’s inside will be entranced. (Informational novelty. 6-9)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7603-5533-6
Page Count: 16
Publisher: becker&mayer! kids
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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