Life on Earth: Dinosaurs: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps! by Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano
| Life on Earth: Dinosaurs: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps! by Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano | |
|
| |
| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
| |
Reviewer: John Lloyd
 | |
| Summary: These aren't the hundred best questions our short timespan has forced us to ask about the mighty prehistory of the dinosaurs, but they will instil science and fascination both into the inquisitive young mind. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 16 | Date: August 2017 |
| Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9781847808974 | |
|
Share on: | |
|
| |
I was a big fan of dinosaurs when I was a nipper. Since then the science regarding them has evolved leaps and bounds. We've got in touch with them perhaps being feathered, and have assumed colours and noises they made – we can even extrapolate from their remains what their eyesight, hearing and so much more may have been like. But science will never stop, and the next generation will need to be on board with the job of discovering them, analysing them, and presenting them to a world that never seems to get enough of the nasty, superlative beasties of Hollywood renown. As you're the kind of person to ask questions, you may well ask 'how do you get that next generation ready for their place in the field and in the laboratory?' I would put this as the answer – even if it is made itself of a hundred questions.
I've met this series thrice before now, and this is just as good as those I found the other end of the year. Construction-wise, these are brilliant books, sturdy and with the feel of a long life. Each double page spread has an appealing, if slightly cartoonish, image, or more regularly a spread of self-contained boxes. Here the design starts as if we're in a natural history museum's prehistory department – and almost the entire front page is a huge flap to lift to find further entry to said hallowed hall, with more questions and answers underneath.
Yes, a call and response rhythm to the book can be a little unnecessary at times, but I found this book to be perhaps the best in the series at making us work. You don't just get to see a question, lift a flap up and sit and read the answer – here you get to see three dinosaur tails, or two dinosaur teeth, or three fossil footprints, and get to see the difference just as much as the answer to whatever the relevant question was. This makes the book the veritable take-home equivalent of those interactive museum games, and the drawers they are now encouraging us to pull out to see extra detail and even more facts or examples. I think any pedagogical boffin will approve of this way of getting facts across.
And facts are, despite the seemingly trivial and random scope of this book, what we're concerned with – the tallest this, the heaviest and slowest that, the smallest dinosaur and the one with the longest name. Full spreads concern the differences between herbivores and carnivores, how they attacked each other and therefore defended themselves, what their senses and motion were like and how they died out – and what they left us with alive today. With a hundred answers of varying import under your belt you will only begin to see the bigger picture – and I attest you will be seeing a possible future for yourself as a dinosaur hunter.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy. We also have a review of Life on Earth: Jungle: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps! by Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano.
If the fact that such extinct remains are the subject of a series titled Life on Earth strikes you as a bit rum, then the edition concerning the human body may be more close to home. A Time Traveller's Field Notes and Observations of Dinosaurs by Gordon Volk was a quirky but appealing read about a girl who went back in time to see these dino-facts and details for herself.
Please share on: 
Facebook, 
Twitter and
Instagram
You can read more book reviews or buy Life on Earth: Dinosaurs: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps! by Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Life on Earth: Dinosaurs: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps! by Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano at Amazon.com.
Comments
Like to comment on this review?
Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.
