Month: July 2010

These two books have a lot of similarities. In both, the illustrations are all either computer-generated textured beasts (with varying degrees of quality) or photos of dig sites, skeletons or fossils. The page spreads are all of a main picture with a larger block of text, and smaller pictures around it with descriptions in smaller text. I couldn\’t help noticing that a lot of the images were the same between the two books, even if shown from a slightly different angle.

Kingfisher Knowledge: Dinosaurs by Nigel Marven

This book describes dinosaurs by the regions in which they lived. First it gives an overview of dinosaur families in general, with a basic family tree showing how the different groups are related, discusses how the original single landmass Pangaea broke up over the centuries into different smaller continents, and offers different theories on why the dinosaurs went extinct. After that the book is organized by geographical areas. In the section for Eurasia it describes where dinosaur fossils were first discovered and how paleontologists uncover them, dinosaur predators found in the Gobi desert, feathered dinosaurs discovered in China, different kinds of pterosaurs (the flying ones), and ancient marine reptiles. The section for the Americas describes Dromaeosaurus which hunted in packs, armored plant-eating dinosaurs, giant sauropods and predatory dinosaurs found in Argentina, discoveries from Hell Creek, Montana and hadrosaurs found in Wyoming. The chapter on Africa and Australia features giant ancient crocodiles, huge sauropods from Madagascar called titanosaurs, different dinosaur tracks found in Australia and dinosaurs that lived in polar regions. I like how this book featured the work of paleontologists, on almost every page you read about how someone made a discovery. At the end of each chapter there is a summary and a text box that highlights different occupations having to do with dinosaurs, museums where dinosaur remains can be seen, and websites and books that give more information. The final pages of the book have a basic timeline showing which dinosaurs or animals were dominant during that period, a glossary and a good index.

Dangerous Dinosaurs Q&A by Carey Scott

This book is organized into broad sections: an overview of the dinosaur age, a part featuring dinosaur predators and scavengers, then plant-eaters and their defensive methods, the biggest dinosaurs, and how they probably died out. It\’s all presented as questions which are then answered, like: did dinosaurs ever get sick? which dinosaur has the biggest brain? did some dinosaurs migrate? I found it very easy to read through. Some of the things I learned from this book were that most meat-eating dinosaurs had only two or three fingers on a hand, whereas plant-eaters had five digits. That some dinosaurs could have had a lifespan of almost 200 years. That some dinosaurs had skin so thick it was practically bullet-proof. That many of the plants dinosaurs ate still exist today. It was all pretty interesting. This book also has a full index.

In both books they mention the ongoing debate of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold. Perhaps some were one, others the opposite. Maybe they were something in between. On other points the books disagree. One tells me that grass didn\’t exist until after the dinosaurs were all gone, the other says that scientists have discovered grass in a dinosaur\’s fossilized droppings. But that\’s what makes reading about all this so interesting- we\’re always learning something new!

by Bobbie Kalman and Tammy Everts

My daughter chose this cute book about cats at the library. Everyone knows of lions and tigers, but what about servals, ocelots and the jaguarundi? Little Cats is a bright, cheerful book of fun facts on the small cats, from domestic housecats to wildcats and even pumas and cheetahs, which are not classified with the big cats (because they can\’t roar, among other things). I like how the book continually compares things a child will recognize from their pet kitty with similar behaviors or traits the wild cats have. It mentions the different kinds of places cats live (both wild and domestic), what they eat, how they hide and raise their families. The second half of the book features eleven small wild cat species with a brief description highlighting their distinctive features:  lynxes and bobcats have tufted ears and short tails, ocelots pluck the feathers before they eat a bird, the fishing cat has webbed toes for swimming, etc. The final page mentions that many wild cats are endangered from poaching and habitat loss, also that pet cats have the opposite trouble: overpopulation. I thought it was kind of odd that the photo descriptions are listed at the very back; and as my daughter wanted me to read them all (I had to guess to identify some of the cats while reading) I had to flip back and forth from every page to match up the descriptions with their pictures for her. It does keep the layout looking very clean and tidy though, not having them included in the main body. If you have a young child who likes cats, this little book is very appealing!

Rating: 3/5 …….. 32 pages, 1994

Animals, animals
by Marc Tyler Nobleman

Another short, fact-packed animal book for kids. On foxes! I love foxes. They\’re so cool and clever and beautiful. I think part of what intrigues me about them is that they\’re a canine with many feline traits- the big triangle ears, super-sensitive hearing, vertical pupils. According to this book, one species, the gray fox, can even retract its claws to keep them sharp (it can also climb trees). Foxes describes how the animals live, their physical features, life cycle and distribution of six of the twenty-three different species: red fox, gray fox, arctic fox, fennec fox, kit or swift fox and bat-eared fox. The final little chapter tells how some red foxes have adapted to live in cities. The only thing I would have wished for this book is some better pictures. Most of the photos are really nice, but some of the ones highlighting a species (like the arctic fox, fennec and gray fox) only show the face. When looking at varieties among species I like to see the different body shapes and proportions (but maybe that\’s just me).

Rating: 3/5 …….. 45 pages, 2007

More opinions at:

Animal Prey
by Sandra Markle

I\’m in kind of an easy-animal-book-reading spate. I picked up a small armload of them at the library last time and find they make enjoyable quick reads when I need a break from the more tedious and brain-aching book Plenitude.

Anyhow, this one is about zebras. The focus is on them as prey animals, so although the storyline mostly follows one little zebra\’s life from birth through his first migration and into adulthood, a lot of it is about how the zebras avoid predators. It is illustrated what strategies they do (or don\’t) have against lions, cheetahs and crocodiles. Sometimes the zebras escape, others aren\’t so lucky. You might want to look at the book yourself first if you\’re considering reading it to a younger or more sensitive child. One zebra is shown with gaping, bleeding wounds on its side from a lion attack, another is shown getting killed, then eaten by scavengers. Facts of life, but maybe a bit too graphic for some. Overall the book is really informative and the photos are spectacular.

Rating: 3/5 ……..40 pages, 2007

I was curious to see if I could identify the kinds of dinosaurs I sketched once when using my daughter\’s toys as models. I was pretty sure they were all based on real dinosaur species. So I brought home a bunch of library books on dinosaurs to peruse. (Ended up finding all the dinosaurs except one). And since I had them at home, and they have such cool pictures, I figured I\’d read some and learn a little bit. Here\’s the first three (most of them are kid\’s books, as I guess it\’s usually children who are interested in learning about dinosaurs).

Dinosaurs: Herbivores by Dougal Dixon

This book describes many different groups of plant-eating dinosaurs: early sauropods (the long-necked ones), ornithopods (which ran upright on long birdlike toes), iguanodons (first discovered in 1822), duckbilled dinosaurs, stegosaurus and his relatives, nodosaurids with spikes, ankylosaurids with club tails, the pachycephalosaurids which had bony heads (probably used for butting each other like goats) and the parrot-beaked dinosaurs (including triceratops). It has many hand-drawn illustrations as well as pictures of the bones. I really liked all the little side facts which showed things scientists know about their body structures: how the dinosaurs carried their weight, what the shape of their teeth tells us, how speculation continues about the arrangement of stegosaurus\’ plates (they were attached to muscle, not bone: were they moveable?) There was even a sauropod with long spikes on its neck, which I never heard of before! One small confusing thing about this book was its arrangement; each spread has a main block of text with smaller illustrations and descriptions surrounding it. On some spreads the main text block was on the right-hand page which threw me off for a second because I\’m used to reading beginning on the left side. This arrangement alternated rather inconsistently, too.

Bizarre Dinosaurs by Christopher Sloan

This book is just plain fun and fascinating. It highlights eleven specific dinosaurs that have features scientists are still puzzling over. We don\’t know their function, but they sure are strange and cool to look at! There\’s a stegosaurid with long spikes jutting out of its shoulders, a little tree-climbing dinosaur with one extra-long finger like an aye-aye, and a sauropod with a funny wide mouth full of tiny, comb-like teeth. I thought it was really cool to read about how scientists made a model of the bony structure atop parasaurolophus\’ head and blew air through it, discovering that it makes noise like a horn! And did you know there\’s a dinosaur called Dracorex hogwartsia? That\’s right, a dinosaur (discovered in 2006) named after Harry Potter\’s school! It has such a fierce-looking bumpy and spiky skull someone thought it looked like a dragon. This book is illustrated with computer-generated models which I love looking at because of the minute details and realistic textures.

Triceratops and Other Horned Plant-Eaters by Virginia Schomp

Unlike the other two books, which just state plain facts, this one is told in a kind of storylike fashion, imagining to the reader how ceratopsian species of dinosaurs might have lived. Did they live in herds for protection? did they use their horns for sparring with each other, or just fighting off predators? What I liked most about this book were all the illustrations showing different kinds of ceratops, the family group that includes triceratops. Some of these dinosaurs had huge, tall neck shields with studs all around the edge. Some had forward-pointing horns, others long spikes on the back of the shield. One had a curious nose horn that curved forward and down. And there was a little primitive ceratops with no horns and a small neck shield, whose face looks rather like a parrot (at least in this picture). I\’m fascinated by all the different forms and shapes they took.

One of the things I enjoy most about all these books is, of course, the pictures. We don\’t know what color dinosaurs were, so the artists are left to create that aspect of the dinosaurs. Some give them dull colors but focus on the textured hide. Others give them wild bright stripes and spots, speckles and fancy bold patterns. It\’s fun to see how different they can look just by being dressed up in colors and stripes. There is one dinosaur we now know the color of, and I wonder if in the future every dinosaur\’s colors will be as well-known as triceratops\’ three-horned profile, making future generations look back with amusement on our fantastical creations when we painted their hides.

Anyhow, if you have a kid who\’s interested in dinosaurs, look for some of these books at the library! They\’re lots of fun and very interesting. I know I learned a lot!