In the Presence of Dinosaurs (Hardcover)

by John Colagrande (Author), Jack Horner (Foreword), Larry Felder (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

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The dinosaurs are dead; long live the dinosaurs. Extinct for 65 million years, dinosaurs have never been more popular. They have been riding a wave of public interest as their image changes from slow-moving monsters doomed to extinction to fascinating, frightening relatives of birds. In the Presence of Dinosaurs proclaims itself "the culmination of this paleontological paradigm shift"--and it is certainly a stunning sight.

Larry Felder's dinosaur paintings have near-photographic realism. The lighting and angles of view are those of the wildlife photographer, not the static diorama. When a Hydrotherosaurus (a close double for the Loch Ness Monster) catches a coelacanth, the line of sight is up the huge neck and apparently through a water-dotted lens. James Gurney, author of Dinotopia, reports: "When I saw the Pterandon courtship picture, I said, 'Yes, of course!'" Parasaurolophus bellowing at sunset, Coelophysis snaring prey as they run from a wildfire, Tricerotops at a waterhole; all the pictures are grippingly realistic and beautiful.

The text, by Felder's high school teacher John Colagrande, is also exceptionally vivid. It reads like a naturalist's exploration of a living world, not the catalogue of a museum: "Just as the wet season is winding down, and the rivers are at their highest, female phytosaurs take over the portions of the riverbank closest to the scrub cover of the flood plains as nesting areas." This is indeed "not an account of extinct animals so much as a celebration of life. It is a wildlife book whose subjects include dinosaurs." --Mary Ellen Curtin

From Publishers Weekly
With childlike energy and pluck, Colagrande, an award-winning New Jersey public school science teacher for 34 years and self-described "dinosaurologist" since the third grade, and Felder, who has received acclaim for his provocative and revolutionary oil paintings of dinosaurs, introduce readers young and old to the world of dinosaurs as never before. Scientists' new views have taught people to understand dinosaurs not as the dumb, violent and lumbering creatures that have long dominated popular imagination, but rather as lively, agile and even elegant creatures that nurtured their young and interacted in accordance with their own social norms, the authors say. Colagrande and Felder also side with those scientists who believe that dinosaurs were not cold-blooded but warm-blooded, some even with hair and fur. With a modern flair, Felder realizes the beauty and detail of various types of dinosaurs and the myriad animals and plants that lived alongside them, reinforcing the authors' main point that "above all, [dinosaurs] were animals. And if the bones they left behind hint at anything at all, they were very special animals indeed." With lively, accessible narrative and striking oil paintings, Colagrande and Felder deliver an imaginative and tantalizing new look at dinosaurs. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Time-Life Books; 1st edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0737000899
• ISBN-13: 978-0737000894
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #869,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
  
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