Customer Reviews

Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Holtz and Rey's Dinosaurs raises the bar not just for all dinosaur books but for all children's books on any subject. I have never -- never -- seen a children's non-fiction book tackle its subject so head-on, in such depth, and with such approachability as this new encyclopedia does. It has something for everyone: the youngest child can enjoy Luis Rey's distinctive, dynamic illustrations; slightly older children will appreciate the descriptions of individual dinosaurs; those older still will be able to understand chapters on the history of dinosaurs, the fossilisation process, geological time and more. And even most adults will learn something from the chapter on cladistics -- surely a first in a book aimed primarily at children.

Tom Holtz is respected as one of the world's leading experts on tyrannosaurs, and more generally for his gift of explaining complex concepts as simply and clearly as possible. His prose is easy to read without being condescending, and always informative. Luis Rey is known for his characteristically colourful and feathery dinosaur art: his work could not be more different from the ``old-school'' dinosaur art of Knight and Burian: it's a welcome antidote to the dull, slow image of dinosaurs that predominated in the books of twenty or even ten years ago. That vividness is combined with a scientific rigour that is by no means universal in dinosaur art to give a new and exciting view of how dinosaurs may well have looked in life.

The book's coverage is impressively complete. An appendix gives basic information on every dinosaur named at the time of publication (about 800 genera), and the main part of the book is a sequence of chapters describing particular dinosaur groups in much more detail. For example, there are separate chapters about coelophysoids and ceratosaurs, spinosauroids, carnosaurs, primitive coelurosaurs, tyrannosauroids, ornithomimosaurs and alvarezsaurs, oviraptorosaurs and therizinosauroids, deinonychosaurs and avialans -- and that's just the theropods! Ornithischians are covered in similar detail, and while sauropodomorphs as usual draw the short straw, they do at least receive four chapters (twice as many as in The Dinosauria, 2nd edition!)

Not only that, the book is BIG -- roughly A4 in size and a good inch thick, printed on thick, glossy paper. Weighing in at a solid 1.7 kg, it has the heft of a proper encyclopedia. At the price (currently $23.09) it's truly absurd value for money, and sits comfortably on the shelf alongside the Glut and Currie-and-Padian encyclopedias costing five times as much.

If I had to criticise this book, then its one imperfection would the absence of a chapter on osteology. A tour of the dinosaur skeleton, explaining the names of the bones, how they fit together and what they do would have been a perfect fit for the more advanced material that's already included. But when the only thing you can criticise about a book is that you wish there was more of it, you know you're on to a good thing.

This book is for the dino-connoisseur, the tyranno-gourmand, the read-all-about-it-a-saurus. The book covers all things dinosaur from a review of geologic time and the history of fossil discoveries to dinosaur babies and dinosaur dung.
Forty-two chapters and 472 pages examine every branch of the dinosaur family tree.
In-depth chapters on coelurosaurs, prosauropods, tyrannosauroids, ceratopsids, (and the list goes on) are enhanced with colorful illustrations that "flesh-out" the detailed drawings of the skeletons which also accompany the chapters.

Personal essays from 33 paleontologists extend the chapters. Dr. Scott D. Sampson discusses "Male and Female Dinosaurs--Can we tell the difference?" and Dr. Matthew T. Carrano writes about "Walking and Running Dinosaurs." Dr. Luis Chiappe reviews the origins of birds during the Mesozoic Era. All of these essays are one page in length and very engaging and readable. The reader hears the scientist's voice explaining their interest and passion for the subject.

This is NOT an Eyewitness book with different reading levels and distinct blocks of text but the illustrations are captioned and sections are headed in uppercase titles. The text is laid out in two columns with a nicely sized type and good white space.

Extensive dinosaur genus charts at the back refer the reader to the matching chapters. If you know a dinosaur fanatic, this is the book for them.

Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages is aptly titled. This truly is for all ages. The organization and scope are outstanding and Dr Thomas R. Holtz, Junior's writing is crystal clear and interesting. He makes the history and changes in the field fascinating reading. Dinosaurs is full of illustrations by Luis V. Rey that expertly compliment the text. There are also charts and photographs. I also like the brief articles by various scholars included in most chapters. There is an extensive Dinosaur Genus List, Glossary, and Index. This book is a remarkable value and priced not only for every school and public library, but affordable for lovers of dinosaurs everywhere. Karen Woodworth-Roman, www.librarians.info

There are many, many books on dinosaurs for that predictable age of 3-6 years old. There are few for the better reader who finds paleontology interesting and wants to know more than a lot of Latin names. This book focuses on the "true" dinosaurs: the most recent common ancestor of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus and their descendants (which means that it covers birds, though only the older more primitive species and how they relate to modern birds). That rules out pterodactyls and plesiosaurs, but the book won't disappoint fans of those animals as several early chapters cover aspects relevant to them, too; fossilization, geologic time, taxonomy, even accuracy of dinosaur art. The middle chapters are organized by genus and speak to their commonalities, their world distribution, and their adaptations. One of the strongest aspects of this book is that it is written by a paleontologist, and includes many one-page essays by a variety of other paleontologists (accompanied by their photograph and where they work) who speak from their own research. The writing style is much more readable than the encyclopedic scope might indicate, and is sprinkled with exclamation points (first time I've ever seen an exclamation mark in a scientific table!) The book will resist becoming dated because it takes the approach of "how we know what we know and what we don't know". Students interested in the field of paleontology will become familiar with investigation techniques and the excitement of discovery, as well as the fine points of taxonomy, without feeling like they are reading a textbook. The artwork is wonderful, illustrating both comparative anatomy and imaginative scenes from dinosaur life.

The review written before by M. Taylor already summarizes all the nice features of this beautiful new dinosaur book and i agree! When i received this book, i was also very impressed about its size and of course its content :-)

The book is lavishly illustrated throughout all pages with hundreds of stunning new and older paintings and sketches done by renowned paleo-artist Luis Rey. The art is fresh, innovative, colourful and thus sometimes a bit speculative but on the other hand also on the top of scientific knowledge about these animals. I've got a lot of fine dinosaur art books but I have to admit that this one will be definetely a favourite one!

As mentioned above the text is structured into several chapters, initially dealing on background knowledge to understand geology and paleontology of dinosaurs and later continuing to the major part dealing on the different dinosaur family trees and species. The text is lively, easy to follow and highly interesting also for adults as far as it contains information "straight from the horse's mouth" as well as includes the most recent dinosaur discoveries.

To summarize: also from my side a clear 5 star-recommendation, you get a terribly good book for this "small" money. Thank you Thom and Luis!

I am not knocking this book at all. It is an excellent book for the older kids group. I read several reviews that stated people bought it for thier children aged around 5 years. My son is 5 and he is as die hard about dinosaurs as any one I have ever seen. There are not enough pictures in this book. The content is a bit scientific for a 5 year old. It is chock full of information. If you are looking for an A-Z guide to dinosaur books this is not it. It is organized through time rather than alphabetically. Overall this is a book you would absolutely love if you are about 10 years old and up.

As a 23 year old man and an amateur paleoartist I always relied on Rey's style to give me inspiration when i draw or paint. I'm fascinated by dinosaurs and, I am, by no means, a child. If the book was conceived for such a yougn audience I cannot stop imagining if it wasn't!!! I could go on forever trying to describe it's greatness but I'll summarize it as before...The BEST dinosaur related and content material ever to be publicized...and at a ridiculous price giving it's EXTREME quality and yes I do own other Rey's illustrated books namely the Field Guide To Dinosaurs.

This is a very good overview of the subject of dinosaurs for the lay person. It covers the systematics of the subject with good descriptions of each grouping and the morphological characters that distinguish them. Most of all it conveys to the reader the breadth of the group and how diverse dinosaurs are; they're not just giant predators and plodding plant-eating monsters, but that they occupied nearly all ecological niches of the Mesozoic world. I certainly wasn't aware of how many different species have been described.


Holtz writes for the adolescent and older lay-person in generally informal language that's not too patronizing for the older reader. It certainly is not a challenging read other than the breadth of the subject. In addition he's generally good about pointing out what are facts based on examination of the fossil evidence and what is pure speculation. He discusses how different paleontologists have different interpretations of the evidence and doesn't present his views like they are the only possibility. This is a very good resource for the person who wants to know just how diverse and extensive dinosaur species were and how they lived based on recent scientific research.

Not only is this book packed with information, but it also offers perspectives from many paleontologists. In fact, over 23 paleontologists contributed toward the book, and it is really enjoyable to read from them. This is not one of the regular dinosaur encyclopedias where the book just lists each dinosaur name and gives its features. Instead, this book groups some species into one (such as stegosaurus). And for each chapter, the author presents colorful information, such as stories, pictures, interesting behaviors, etc. In addition, there are information about geology, geography, paleontology, and much more. You won't be bored with dry, boring facts with this book!

I got this for my 6-year-old daughter who loves dinosaurs, and not only does she love it, but it's fascinating for me too. It does go into a lot of detail, but does so in such a clear way that it's still very understandable (besides, we like detail). The tone is nicely conversational. This is a book that I think we will read and re-read for years to come.