Customer Reviews

Paleo Bugs: Survival of the Creepiest

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

 

 

This book (and the series) are excellent! The author put much thought not only into the text of the book, but also the layout. The small added touches add a great deal to kids' enjoyment of these books.

I read this book to my son and daughter and both enjoyed it immensely. The younger one was fascinated by the pictures and the side bars comparing the size of the creature discussed to a human. The older one liked the graphics but also focused more on the text.

Because of this, I would recommend this book to anyone who has children in the 6+ age for the pictures and side bars. If you have children in the middle school range, this may be a little beneath them but the text is quite informative and does not talk down to the reader at all. I highly recommend for adults as well, if you like ancient insects.

"If most young people and, in many cases, even adults were asked to describe fossils, it is very likely that they would focus on exhibits of the enormous reconstructed skeletons in a museum they may have visited or on the often imaginary animals portrayed in Hollywood films. Few would include an ancient world that was far more diverse, inhabited by a vast array of life-forms ranging from the "megalife" of dinosaurs to the smallest of creatures that first appeared more than 500 million years ago. Using his own creative talents as an artist and writer, as well as the talents of other artists and of paleontologists, Timothy J. Bradley, in Paleo Bugs: Survival of the Creepiest, describes, illustrates, and discusses the behavior of the numerous insects that lived in the past, ranging from those that lived in the Paleozoic to those that filled the world of the early Cenozoic. He then compares each of these "bugs," as he likes to call them, with their possible descendants that inhabit the world today. The author's "nimble prose" makes the book easy to read, even for younger children, and the abundant, colorful illustrations are well crafted, fascinating, and compelling. Don't be surprised to see the reader of this book out in the field or in some other place, turning over logs, rocks, or other possible hiding places to search out and study contemporary insects that he or she has just learned so much about. It's that kind of book."

Good book (and I thought my boys had them all). Seems accurate and details are there when they read further.