Mad About Dinosaurs

One of my cousins got married in Baltimore a few weeks ago, and as soon as I got off the plane I took the opportunity to visit the Daedalus Books warehouse. I went a little berserk (books for $2!). Among the treasures I brought home were a bunch of children’s science books I hadn’t run across before. One of them in particular looked perfect for our son, who is deep into dinosaur mania. But My Book of the Prehistoric World by Christopher Maynard and Chris Pellant has turned out to be frustratingly uneven.

The book is beautifully illustrated. But the accompanying text is poorly organized and occasionally misleading. It starts with a summary of the Earth’s formation and a basic primer on types of rocks. Then it jumps right to the dinosaurs, skipping a couple of billion years of time in the process. If it’s a book about the “prehistoric world”, why skip the Paleozoic? Worse, the introduction to the dinosaurs starts with “dinosaur babies.” I have no beef with the authors using Maiasaura as an example of maternal care –some of the most compelling evidence for those behaviors came from Maiasaura fossils. But it lived about 74 million years ago, so pairing it with the statement that dinosaurs first appeared 230 million years ago is somewhat incongruous.

Most of the book describes “how dinosaurs lived” instead of simply listing the known types of dinosaurs, their anatomical characteristics, and when they lived. This approach is certainly engaging, and the authors include a lot of detail that I know is supported by fossil evidence. But unfortunately, they also make a lot of assertions about dinosaur behavior that is very speculative. For example, the authors write

At night, dinosaurs settled down to sleep in a large herd. Some were always awake and moving around, like soldiers on guard duty.

Where’s the fossil evidence for that? There are also annoying inconsistencies in terminology, as when they introduce the term ‘sauropod’, then spend the rest of the book calling the animals ‘long-necks’ like that lame Land Before Time animated series.

The book ends with explanations of fossil preservation, stratigraphy, evolution, and how fossils are collected, prepared, and interpreted. In short, all the background information that makes the main text on dinosaur behavior more coherent comes at the end of the book. And some of that information is a little dodgy, too. An otherwise accurate drawing of paleontologists excavating a dinosaur shows everyone in hard hats, and a bit of text in the drawing explains that the scientists wear “protective clothing & hard hats at all times”. That’s news to me. Maybe they just don’t want kids trying this at home.

Look Ma! No hard hats! (Picture by P. Sereno)

So I’m conflicted. My Book of the Prehistoric World does contain some good introductory material on dinosaur paleontology. I particularly appreciate that it includes a simple explanation of evolution. But unless it comes wrapped with a knowledgable adult, I’m afraid that its haphazard organization will confuse more kids than it educates.

My Book of the Prehistoric World
Christopher Maynard and Chris Pellant
2001
Kingfisher: NY

Comments

[Becca]

So what would you recommend for a four-year-old and two-year-old, to foster their dinosaur mania, both book-wise and toy-wise?

[DianeAKelly]

Book-wise, I've liked accounts of specific expeditions that are written by scientists like _A Nest of Dinosaurs_ by Mark Norell and Lowell Dingus, and Jack Horner's _Digging Up Tyrannosaurus Rex_. And I don't think you can go wrong with a large collection of accurate plastic models like the ones from the Carnegie Collection(http://www.safariltd.com/).