Prehistoric Actual Size [Hardcover]

Steve Jenkins (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 7 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

What is it like to come face-to-face with the ten-foot-tall terror bird? Or stare into the mouth of the largest meat eater ever to walk the earth? Can you imagine a millipede that is more than six feet long, or a dinosaur smaller than a chicken? In this “actual size” look at the prehistoric world, which includes two dramatic gatefolds, you’ll meet these awe-inspiring creatures, as well as many others.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 5–The exciting artistic presentation that worked so well in Actual Size (Houghton, 2004) is equally successful when applied to prehistoric creatures. Progressing chronologically from a dot-sized protozoan of 550 million years ago, Jenkins has chosen the animals and the portions of them to depict to great effect. Cut- and torn-paper figures reveal texture and delicate details, from the long wings of an early dragonfly to the feathered tuft of an eight-foot terror bird. A three-inch spiny shark stands out distinctly against a page of white space, while less than half of a giant millipede barely fits across two pages. A series of foldout pages reveals one complete small dinosaur (Saltopus), the impressive beak and head of a flying reptile (Dsungaripterus), and the thick claw of a fish-eating dinosaur (Baryonyx). Besides the sheer visual impact, the illustrations often highlight features mentioned in the brief text, such as the sharp beak of Protoceratops. Closing pages offer more information about each species, along with spot illustrations that provide the full-body view necessarily lacking from many of the actual-size renderings. Only 5 of the 17 animals are actual dinosaurs, and the inclusion of mammals, insects, and other groups emphasizes the diversity of life forms over this vast prehistoric span. The largest animal shown is also the most dramatic: the top and bottom teeth of Giganotosaurus fill an entire spread. Sure to elicit plenty of Wows from the 560's aisle.–Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, OR
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 1-3. Children fascinated by Jenkins' vibrant cut-paper artwork in Actual Size (2004) won't want to miss this oversize album of prehistoric creatures that range from tiny to enormous. Not limited to dinosaurs, the animals pictured here include the minuscule protozoa, one millimeter in diameter; the eight-foot-tall "terror bird"; and the Giganotosaurus, which "may have been the largest predator that ever lived on land." The most arresting spreads are those in which the animal is too large to picture in its entirety. Only the Giganotosaurus' huge teeth are pictured (a few of those take up nearly a page), and the head and neck of the large flying reptile Dsungaripterus requires a four-page foldout. The dramatic effect of showing creatures at their actual size is even greater this time than in the first book, which featured contemporary animals. It's certainly hard to imagine that a three-inch shark, a dragonfly with a two-foot wingspan, and a six-foot millipede once actually lived on Earth. Information about and an illustration of the entire creature (not to scale) completes this colorful volume. Diane Foote
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Hardcover: 36 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; None edition (September 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618535780
• ISBN-13: 978-0618535781
• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 10.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #596,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steve Jenkins has written and illustrated nearly twenty picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor-winning What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eyepopping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative. He lives in Colorado with his wife and frequent collaborator, Robin Page, and their children. To learn more about Steve and his books, visit www.stevejenkinsbooks.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Size matters, November 22, 2005

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prehistoric Actual Size (Hardcover)

In this crazed topsy-turvey world, it's always nice to have something to hold on to. Like the fact that small children are obsessed with dinosaurs, for example. Year after year, babies are born, mature, and grow into bright-eyed preschoolers who shriek continually for just one thing: DINOSAUR BOOKS!!!!! There are worse things in the world. As a children's librarian I see new dino books all the time and usually they're so dull and rote that it's all I can do to keep from falling asleep as I process them. Now about a year ago I had the good fortune to stumble across Steven Jenkins' brilliant, "Actual Size". Cunningly playing on a child's need to interact with a non-fiction title, Jenkins created gorgeous pictures of large and small animals from around the globe at their actual size. Sometimes only a single eye of a critter would fill a page. Other times, you could fit a tiny monkey within the palm of the smallest hand. "Prehistoric Actual Size" takes the already grand idea of giving us life-sized cut-out illustrations and mixes in the already existing need for dinosaurs, ancient gigantic millipedes, terror birds, and other animals that no longer exist today. And how the children now wish that they did.

The book knows who its audience it. It gently shows a tiny morgan's tooth that's a mere 4-inches-long on the title page. From this tiny mammal (an ancestor, one might wonder) we turn the page and find ourselves staring at a particularly malevolent Velociraptor (with feathers, no less). Serving the kiddies exactly what they want right from the start allows Jenkins to insert little-known prehistoric goodies alongside the better known. A tiny protozoan the size of a period in this sentence stands beside a sea scorpion of 2 meters or so. Kids will meet creatures they've never even heard of, like the flightless and eight foot tall terror bird that ran as fast as a modern horse. Or the rabbit-like Epigaulus with horns and long claws to match. By the end they'll have gone close to a baryonyx's foot and counted the sharp teeth in a dinocephalosaurus' mouth. It makes, I can tell you, for riveting reading.

It occurs to me now that if you had a kid that was mighty slow in learning his or her measurements, "Prehistoric Actual Size" (and its predecessor, for that matter) might fall into the category of "godsend". Think about it. Each illustration of a creature in this book comes with a small bit of text underneath the image explaining how large the creature was. Let's say you want to teach kids their inches. Just open the book up to the picture of the Saltopus and point out that this smallest of dinosaurs was a mere 24 inches long. In the case of the Velociraptor, a measuring stick could be laid out on top of the book on the ground and an adult could show a kid just how long 6 feet really are. Kids can imagine the dinosaur reposing on the ground, only its maliciously toothy face visible from the book's pages. Math teachers should sit up and take notice. Measuring prehistoric animals and insects might make boring old inches to centimeter discussions into riveting experiments.

Jenkins' illustrations are, as always, remarkable. And for the first time I noticed a real attention to details that most cut-paper artists would never even think of in the first place. Sometimes an animal's eye will contain just the right circle of white felt, giving the eyeballs a shiny glint that would otherwise be lacking. Stare at the pictures long enough and you begin to get a feel for what Jenkins has been able to accomplish.

Just in case you pick up this book, flip through it, and give a cry of rage that the critter on the cover is never defined, merely turn the book over and note that on the back cover we are told that this is the beaky maw of an adult Protoceratops. A baby Protoceratops crawls out of its shell to show yet another difference in size. Comparisons between this book and the original "Actual Size" are inevitable. "Actual Size", it occurs to me, did a better job with pure scale. You'd find yourself face-to-eyeball with a giant squid on one page, and then trace the long loopy two-foot tongue of an anteater on another. Here that kind of whimsy is lacking. Jenkins eschews the idea of cramming a creature's extremities (or whatever a tongue constitutes) onto a single page. Though the giant millipede does give the viewer a good visceral shock, the pure pleasure of "Actual Size" feels a bit diluted. A bit strained. Still, none of this is to say that the book won't appeal to the kiddies. I suspect that due to its subject matter, "Prehistoric Actual Size" will be garnering a whole new fan base for itself, all thanks to the dinos within.

The idea that something educational can also be fun has been done to death, and usually with deeply un-fun results. "Preshistoric Actual Size" is an exception to that rule. Incredibly informative, beautiful to the eye, and accurate within an inch of its life, Steve Jenkins makes an almost wholly wonderful addition to his already fabulous cut-paper picture books. A title to put Ezra Jack Keats to shame.

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, if a bit unsettling, June 23, 2011

By 

S. Howell (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prehistoric Actual Size (Hardcover)

Reading this book to my daughter, I found myself placing my hands on the page very carefully, lest I snag my finger on a Baryonyx claw or accidentally touch the Very Large Cockroach. It's not that the illustrations are so terribly life-like. They are clearly pictures. It's just that the effect of seeing these creatures, or in most cases, bits of these creatures, at actual size is so startling. As I type this, I am cringing away from a millipede larger than my computer.

Sure, the view from within a Giganotosaurus mouth is striking, but it's the pictures of the creepy crawlies that get to me the most. Dinosaurs are supposed to be huge. Dragonflies have no business being larger than my cat.

And once you start thinking about the actual sizes of these things, it's hard to stop. We have a private airport in our town, which means we often see small planes flying just overhead. A few days after reading this book, I spotted a biplane through the moon roof of my car, and for a moment, imagined it was a Quetzalcoatlus, a flying pterosaur with a wingspan of some 35 feet. Unsettling. But if you (or your preschooler) are fascinated with dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, an awful lot of fun.

(Review originally posted at my blog-- Caterpickles: Scientific & Linguistic Engagement with a 4 Year Old Mind @ [...])

5.0 out of 5 stars great for animal, prehistoric, and nature loving kids, December 16, 2008

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G "gmom" (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prehistoric Actual Size (Hardcover)

my seven-year-old son loves non-fiction. we gifted this book to his kindergarten class a year ago. it's amazing as is "Actual Size" which has a Gorilla on the cover and includes animals that are more current. The pictures are fabulous!