Customer Reviews

Living with Dinosaurs

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

 

 

This is a fantastic dinosaur book, intended for youngsters but enjoyable by older dinosaurophiles as well! LIVING WITH DINOSAURS explores the various habitats of early Late Cretaceous Montana and their inhabitants, which include not only dinosaurs (famous ones being Maiasaura, Corythosaurus, Albertosaurus, and Troodon) but their neighbors (pterosaurs, marine reptiles, sharks, primitive seabirds, mammals, and others), hence the name of the book. Henderson's artwork is very dramatic, very beautiful, and very impressive, and fans of dinosaur art (such as myself) will simply gobble them up. A definite must for ANY dinosaurophile's library! -- Rachel K. Clar

ISBN 0027545210 - Printed in the United States. Because I'm not much of a dinosaur fan, I was only mildly curious about this book. The target audience is 8 to 11 year olds, and I'm a bit older than that - for that audience, especially the boys and the dino-fans in that audience, this is a better book than I anticipated.

Author Patricia Lauber takes you back some 75 million years and puts you down amongst the dinosaurs, giving you a firsthand look at life alongside of these creatures. Surprisingly, the text is not difficult to read (other than some lengthy and uncommon dinosaur names) and manages to do a fair job of setting the right tone. That is completed by fantastic images by Douglas Henderson. Some of his work looks almost like a photo, making the dinosaurs and their habitat look unusually real.

The book ends with the chapter "Digging up the Past: How We Know What We Know", which brings you back to today (well, 1991, when the book was written) and gives some information about fossils and the science behind studying dinosaurs. There is a one-page Index and Pronunciation, which is helpful on both fronts. A good resource for reports or for those homeschooling parents who don't find dinosaurs conflicting with their religious beliefs. Not a book I'd ever read again, but I don't have to take a quiz or write a report! I'd give the text 3 stars, but Henderson's illustrations earn it 4.

- AnnaLovesBooks