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If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today by Dougal Dixon (view source)
Revision as of 09:37, 1 June 2013
, 09:37, 1 June 2013no edit summary
Each type is looked at individually and this is where the book really comes into its own. Let's take the sauroposeidon as an example. To give an idea of its size there's a picture showing the animal with a herd of elephants and demonstrating that it would be easy for the sauroposeidon to accidentally knock an elephant over with a careless flick of the tail. The picture dominates the double-page spread, but there's information as to where relevant fossils have been found (including a map), the animal's classification and its habitat. The name is translated, it's placed in time and then there are descriptions of the physical characteristics. These facts are given for each dinosaur, but there are also some further facts which vary. For the sauroposeidon there's some information about the neck and then a graph which shows its size in relation to an elephant. It's actually seven times as tall.
There's something there for every child, from a relatively young one who will simply enjoy looking at the pictures and getting an idea of how big the dinosaur was, how they defended themselves or even how they kept cool. For a child wanting more information the facts are there and they're sufficiently detailed to be used as the basis for anyone who wants to look into the subject in even more depth. I had just one or two small quibbles here: the purist in me wanted to know what types of planes were with the seismosaurus. The Alsatian dog with the coelophysis is more commonly known as the German Shepherd and it was never known as the Alsation. That's just me being picky though.
The section on dinosaur science deals with some meaty issues and does it in a user-friendly way. We don't know why the dinosaurs became extinct, but the various theories are simply and clearly stated and then a conclusion is drawn on the basis of what seems to have been likely. There's basic information about the layers of time, rock strata and dinosaur discoveries. I was particularly taken by the piece on the changing planet. It's easy to forget that continental drift is a continuing process, but the Atlantic Ocean is thirty metres wider now than it was when Columbus crossed it 500 years ago. Nothing in the section on dinosaur science is difficult to come to terms with although a lot of the concepts will be new to children.