How to Talk Dinosaur With Your Child [Paperback]

Q. L. Pearce (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 163 pages
• Publisher: Lowell House (November 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929923480
• ISBN-13: 978-0929923482
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,755,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Children are people too, July 30, 2002

By 

absent_minded_prof (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Talk Dinosaur With Your Child (Paperback)

This book is a really terrific idea. I am disappointed that there are over two million other books which are purchased more frequently than this one, according to Amazon.com -- it just doesn't seem right.

Querida Pearce has done a great deal of work, in compiling this amazing little volume. Conversations about dinosaurs are one of the few areas where adults and children can really be complete equals together, sharing in a state of wonder. Actually, as often as not, the adults are at a disadvantage here. Children often know MUCH more than the less age-challenged, height-challenged members of their families, about this fascinating topic. Therefore, to help adults bridge this unfortunate gap, Ms. Pearce has created this guide.

Let me just briefly mention that this book came out a couple of years before the film "Jurassic Park." It happens that some of the dinosaurs featured in that film were almost completely unknown, to most folks, before the film came out. Velociraptors, in particular, are only mentioned in passing in "How to Talk Dinosaur With Your Child." And the Tyrannosaurus Rex is always referred to by its full name, never as a "T. Rex." But those are small complaints, of course. This book is basically superb, and has been highly praised by curators at museums featuring paleontology exhibits.

Here are some particularly fun features of this book. In Chapter 8, the author talks about how you could prepare for a visit to a dinosaur museum with your children. She helps you get thinking about how you could create a dinosaur diorama, for example, to help your kids understand how the displays in the museum are made. In Chapter 11, there's a great little section about dinosaur names. It gives handy definitions of all the little Latin and Greek prefixes, suffixes, and other roots which go into composing the names of dinosaurs. You can even use this section to start making up dino-names for family, friends, or pets. For example, if you have a dog with very triangular ears, and a short tail, you could take the roots "spheno" (wedge shaped); "oto" (ear); "micro" (small); and "urus" (tail), and start calling your dog Sphenooto Microurus. This is how scientists really name dinosaurs! You and your children can share a lot of laughs with this section.

The whole book is packed with ideas for dinner table discussions, or for talking about during agonizingly long car rides. For example, Ms. Pearce encourages readers to think about the devastation that would be left behind if a herd of diplodoci crashed through the local jungle. She suggests going to the library, and seeking out accounts of how African jungles have sprung back after rampages by groups of elephants. The whole book is full of suggestions like this. They go on, page after page after page. I don't know how she thought up so many great ideas.

As I said earlier, some parts of this book are realy designed to help adults catch up to their kids, who are most likely miles ahead of them in their knowledge of dino-lore. But the focus is on finding common ground, and things to share wonder about. This book is actually about real wonder, real scientific discovery, and real fun. This book represents what learning really should be like, although of course it rarely actually is.

If you enjoy this fine little volume, I would like to recommend "After Man: A Zoology of the Future," by Dougal Dixon, which is also incredibly fun and interesting. It gets kids asking "what if" we could see into the future, and visualize how present animals might evolve in coming millenia? It has amazing pictures, and provocative essays. Also, you may wish to take a look at "Our Continent: A Natural History of North America," by National Geographic. They did a great job with that book, and it includes actual charts so you can see how various dinosaurs evolved. Also, just a slightly oddball recommendation: I really enjoyed the book "When Geologists Were Historians," by Rhoda Rappaport. It helps you see what early scientists were up against, when they tried to get people to conceptualize the idea that rocks were laid down in layers, some of which contained dinosaur bones.

Anyway, "How to Talk Dinosaur With Your Child" is superb. You owe it to your kids, or maybe even to a co-workers kids, to pick up a copy of this book.