Customer Reviews

Disney's Dinosaur! The Essential Guide

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"Dinosaur: The Essential Guide" is an oversized companion book to the animated film "Dinosaur," which was a big 2000 hit for Walt Disney. This book, lavishly illustrated with scenes from the film, describes the characters, locales, and species that appear in the film.

The book is a visual treat. Disney used cutting-edge techniques to bring the creatures of "Dinosaur" to life, and the book captures each animal splendidly. The soft fur of the lemurs, the bony neck frill of the styracosaur, the fierce teeth of the carnotaur--all the details are vivid and memorable.

The book's effectiveness is, however, compromised by the fact that the authors seem unsure of their purpose. Is this book supposed to be a guide to the fictional world of the movie, or to the real world of dinosaurs as science understands them? For example, the book is filled with scientific-sounding observations like "Herd dinosaurs are highly social animals, and during the nesting season the lake is the center of their bustling community." Sidebars with titles like "Cretaceous Life" add to this pseudoscientific flavor. But as far as I know, there is no evidence that dinosaurs spoke English or formed multispecies families with lemurs, as depicted in this film! This flaw aside, this book is a treat for kids who loved the movie, or who love dinosaurs in general.

This is the best of the Disney's Dinosaur books to date. It contains numerous wonderful photos from the movie, all reproduced on good quality paper and in good quality tones as is characteristic of DK books. It is not written in storybook format, so if you're looking for a read-aloud narrative this would not be the best choice. However, if you're looking for the most thorough and comprehensive way to re-experience the details and nuances of the film, this is the book to get.

My daughter practically sleeps with this book, being a big DINOSAUR fan and also a fan of just dinosaurs in general. If your kids love the movie, this book is a must. All characters are shown, described in detail...lots of full color illustrations and stuff from the movie. Well worth the money.

The folks at DK have done it again with their guide to the upcoming Disney film DINOSAUR. This excellent book follows the same formula as the other "Essential" books produced by DK, with each page lavishly filled with images from the film. Each character from the film, both major and background are represented here as well as various elements from the world they inhabit. Informative text point out various aspects of each image in a concise easy to read manner which will hold the attention of even the most adamant of anti-reading juveniles. Each page instantly grabs one's attention with much to look at,yet without ever appearing hapazardly piled together. A sumptuous visual book that should appeal to not only children, but anyone who collects Disneyana or simply likes animation or dinosaurs. A must buy and valued addition to anyone's personal library