FEATHERED DINOSAURS OF CHINA

For his solo debut, a veteran science illustrator takes dinophiles on a day trip to an early Cretaceous lake in modern China’s Liaoning Province—identifying birds, insects, small mammals, and over a dozen species of the feathered or furred dinosaurs miraculously preserved there in the fossil record. As the text is only a series of hard-to-pronounce Latinate names connected by the barest of narrative threads, and brightly decorated creatures pose stylishly in the paintings, but are evidently able to feed without biting or bloodshed, this isn’t the most riveting treatment of the topic. It is, however, the most extensive and up-to-date for younger readers, so despite its deficiencies—no bibliography or Web list, either—it’s worth considering as a replacement for older surveys. (glossary/index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)