Dinosaurs

With at least half the children in the country besotted by all things Jurassic, here is a surefire hit for a car journey to and from a Dorset beach holiday. Green uses metaphors attuned to young listeners to tell the story of the awesome creatures that can be the size of chickens or ‘longer than two tennis courts and weighing more than 1,000 people’, and whose fossilised bones inspired legends of dragons and giants. Among much else that I didn’t know is that the famous fossil-hunter Mary Anning was 12 when she discovered her first Lyme Regis fossil, or that a Victorian banquet was held inside the concrete model of a giant iguanodon that you can still see at Crystal Palace Park, in South London.

Christina Hardyment, The Times

Benjamin Soames’s welcoming narration combines the tones of a teacher and a kindly storytelling uncle. The amount of information on dinosaurs is vast, covering their types, history, locations and much more. Short musical interludes conjuring images of the large beasts separate segments, preventing the plethora of information from being overwhelming. Periodically, the audio provides suggestions to help young listeners grasp the concepts being presented – such as describing how they might measure the distance between their own footsteps on a beach to grasp how scientists use fossilised footprints to capture dinosaurs’ speed. This engaging audio may send families searching for the book on which it is based, which includes 3D materials.

S.W., AudioFile

Dinosaurs is packed with vivid descriptions of dinosaurs, their habitats, and the periods during which they lived: Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. Green does an exemplary job explaining the science, comparing the length of dinosaurs to school buses and their weight to elephants. After a brief overview, the chapters are divided by time period and delve into specifics: what dinosaurs ate, if they hunted in packs, and if they roamed in herds. Green points out that early discoveries of dinosaur bones were often misleading until more information came to light. Many fossil hunters are introduced to listeners, including Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh; they revolutionised paleontology, and their relentless rivalry was known as the Bone Wars. Benjamin Soames’s narration is sprightly with a pleasant English accent and clear pronunciation of scientific terms. Much of the etymology for dinosaur names, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, is explained throughout. An excellent resource for anyone interested in dinosaurs, this title is full of encouragement to look for fossils and to keep an open mind.

C.A. Fehmel, School Library Journal