Customer Reviews

The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia written by David Burnie and illustrated by John Sibbick is a wonderful text with plenty of well captured illustrations along with the text to captivate your imagination about what dinosaurs were like. This text vividly captures you as it attempts to recreate the lives of the different dinosaurs covered in this encyclopedia.

"The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia" is arranged in a chronological order giving copious attention to dinosaur habits and habitats. Also, there is attention to detail about information on how fossil finds can be interpreted as the information is related to the time of the dinosaurs. The writing is easily understandable and children will wonder at the pictutres along with the prose.

I found this book to be up-to-date on a lot of information and is and outstanding guide to dinosaur life and times. There is some comparative anatomy, as the book goes into detail about the Maximum Length, Time, and Fossil finds as to location as to where these animals were found. This makes the book interesting as we see contrast to different types of dinosaurs as to location on the map. Also, the interrealtion of species to one another.

"The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia" is a book that can be used as a reference as well when comparing different dinosaurs to one another. The contents of this book is as follows:

Life in the Distant Past
The Age of Ancient Life
The Age of Reptiles
Plant-Eating Giants
Ornithopods
The Meat Eaters
Giant Meat Eaters
Armored Dinosaurs
Reptiles in the Air
Reptiles in the Sea
The Age of Mammals

There are subcatigories in each of these major chapters and there is adequate detail making for and interesting read. Dinosaurs are a significant part of prehistory. The more we discover about dinosaurs, the more we find out about the world we live in today.

This book rates a solid five stars for imaginative illustration and a text that is easily understood giving the reader a well-rounded view of life's past. You will not be disappointed with this book as it is unbelievably rewarding.

Read all my reviews on dinosaur books.

The "Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia" by David Burnie is probably the best for new students, especially with a reading age of 8 to 12 years. The information is accurate and the varied illustrations are of a high quality. However, it doesn't cover the newer discoveries (like the therizonosaurs or dinosaurs with feathers) having been published back in 2001.

Typically, the start of the book designates pages (about 20) to background information. In this case 'Life in the Distant Past' which sets aside two pages on such topics as the beginning of life; Earth's first animals; evolution; fossils: how they form and paeleontology; continental drift; mass extinctions; and time scales. The book then moves into life found from the periods before the Mesozoic (about 30 pages). Dinosaurs take up the bulk of the remainder of the book (110 pages) with flying reptiles, sea reptiles and mammals completing the last 50 pages.

The dinosaur section is divided into dinosaur groups: Plant-eating giants; Ornithopods; Meat eaters; Giant meat-eaters; and Armoured dinosaurs. Each of these sections have a few pages on each of the genus' (eg Megalosaurs and Segnosaurs; Allosaurs; and Tyrannosaurs in the Giant meat-eaters section). Each of these sections provide a paragraph (about 80-100 words) on each species (eg Allosaurus; Carcharodontosaurus; Neovenator; and Giganotosaurus) with a small habitat illustration on most (but not all).

What I like about this book is the balanced viewpoints. Unlike "National Geographic Dinosaur" by Barrett, this book's commentary is much more credible in that it provides both sides of an argument, thus providing information that is accurate instead of dogmatic. The only issue I have is the text is too short. But for a new student, it is just right.

The other point of discussion in dinosaur books are the illustrations. The "Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia" has a lot of illustrations of many kinds: pencil sketches, paintings of individual dinosaurs against a white background, paintings of habitat scenes and photos of fossils. All the illustrations are accurate unlike "Dinosaurus" by Parker and Gee's "A Field Guide to Dinosaurs". Only Raul Martin's illustrations in "National Geographic Dinosaur" are of equal quality.

What I also like about this book is the sketches are often showing relative sizes of species. Without any other point of reference for size (there is no scale anywhere for comparisons) these sketches are really useful.

Another impressive feature of the book are the odd chapters of aspects characteristic to the group. For instance, in

Plant-eating giants the feature is:
'Feeding on Plants' - diet and teeth;
'A Question of Size' - weighing dinosaurs, reaching the top of trees.

Ornithospods:
'Life in a Group' - herd sizes, dinosaur social life;
'Colours and Camouflage' - sex differences, changing colour;
'Sounds' - crests.

Meat-Eaters:
'Moving on Two Legs' - sprinters and plodders, balance;
'Studying Dinosaur Tracks' - gauging speeds, identifying footprints;
'Dinosaur Brains' - nervous systems, relative brain size, learning;
'Parental Care' - incubation, leaving the nest;
'The Origin of Birds' - first feathers, gliding, light for flight.

Giant Meat-Eaters:
'Carnosaurs' - family, limits to growth;
'Were Dinosaurs Warm-Blooded?' - hearts, evidence in bone.

Armoured Dinosaurs:
'Dinosaur Defences' - jaws and claws, whips and clubs, spines and horns, plating;
'Weapons and Ornaments' - sexual selections, locking horns.

Overall, this is a fantastic first book on dinosaurs. The information is reliable and the illustrations very good. It would suit any new student over most other dinosaur books.

If you have a kid who is crazy for dinosaurs, this is the book for you! Lots of clear pictures where you can really see the animals from head to toe. Although this is by no means a complete dinosaur encyclopedia, there are pronounciations for these impossible words and helpful scales comparing each dinosaur to an adult human.

This is a really cool book. Has a lot of great information in it. My daughter was a dinosaur freak for awhile and loved it! Worth the buy!