Apatosaurus

April 1, 2012

Gr 1-3-Falling well below current standards for dino-profiles, these slapdash productions pair standard-issue descriptive texts with illustrations drawn from various sources and done in a variety of styles. Not only do the pictures, with only occasional exceptions, look washed out, blurry, and over-enlarged, but the closing photos of fossil skeletons are angled to show only unrevealing partial views. Pronunciation guides appear throughout to help with difficult names, and a scale comparison in each volume juxtaposes the height of a five-foot-tall person with that of the featured dinosaur.

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2012
Grades K-2 It would seem there are as many dinosaur series as there were actual dinosaurs, but that doesn't mean the When Dinosaurs Lived series isn't worth a look. In fact, it is an impressively produced package that introduces the youngest nonfiction fans to extinct creatures in a format ever so slightly more sophisticated than is typical, courtesy of the publisher's trademark magazine-style layouts. The organization of each volume is nearly identical. Using a bright, vibrant mix of left-page illustrations (including models, paintings, computer-generated artwork, and photos of fossils in the dirt as well as the connected bones), each book takes the reader through the basics of lifespan, name origins, size, speed, diet, and fossil-discovery history. Meanwhile, Sound It Out boxes encourage readers to unpack those problematic proper nouns (Cycnorhamphus is pronounced sik-nor-HAM-fus). Apatosaurus looks at the 30-ton herbivores, who packed in 1,000 pounds of food a day. A quibble: the black-colored vocabulary words are hard to differentiate from the blue text. Otherwise, this is a solid starting point for aspiring paleontologists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2012
Each volume presents up-to-date information on a popular dinosaur species, covering anatomy, habitat and range, and diet, as well as historical information about the scientists involved in fossil discoveries. The full-page color illustrations, which include paintings, computer-generated images, and photographs, vary in quality; the best are the final photos of fossils on display in museums around the world. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)