Unusually well organized, with plenty of appeal for both casual and confirmed dinophiles.
Realistically depicted dinos strike alert poses in prehistoric settings in this overview of when and where they and some of their cousin creatures lived.
After opening with big-picture views of our planet’s history and a timeline punctuated by massive extinction events, the two-part presentation first introduces representative species from each period of the Mesozoic era in turn, then goes on to highlight select fossils discovered in modern times at major sites on each continent—including Antarctica. Following a roundup of dino extinction theories and a gallery of prehistoric birds other than Archaeopteryx, an alphabetically arranged table of dinosaur information (name, geological period, length, and more) kicks off a flurry of useful resources (including apps) and other backmatter. Expertly angled to show brightly colored skin patterns and plumage, distinctive physical features, and (especially) teeth to good advantage, the prehistoric cast shares page space with blocks of simply phrased descriptive commentary, easy-to-read maps, site photos, and portraits of paleontologists, including several of color, at work.
Unusually well organized, with plenty of appeal for both casual and confirmed dinophiles. (glossary, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction browsing/reference. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 9781426372797
Page Count: 128
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Pretty but insubstantial.
Fifty dinosaurs and kindred contemporaries display their hues in this large-format portrait gallery.
A greater mismatch between the pictures and the accompanying descriptive comments would be hard to imagine. Arranged in no discernable order one or two per spread, Sewell’s dinosaurs float benignly in static poses against white backgrounds. Figures mostly look flat and are roughly the same size, so there are no cues to relative scale. Rather than opening to display jagged dentifrices, mouths are usually closed, often set in small smiles, and the artist indicates details of scales, skin, and other features with just a perfunctory line or color change. Said colors sometimes make vivid contrasts—Velociraptor sports a downright garish mix of blood red and turquoise—but are for the most part pretty blends of hues. In contrast to the art’s weightless harmony, the narrative goes for the gusto: Ceratosaurus “was easily distinguishable by two devil horns, a fearsome nasal spike, a ridge of spikes down its back, and a set of huge gnashers designed for ripping apart the flesh of anything it came across.” Quetzalcoatlus “must have been a worrying sight, the size of a fighter jet wheeling round the sky.” References to “slow-footed” T. rex and “cunning” Utahraptor as well as a claim that Troodons “weren’t exactly rocket scientists” indicate a loose grasp of the difference between fact and speculation to boot.
Pretty but insubstantial. (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61689-716-1
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
An enthralling historical account.
Rentetzi tells a lesser-known but inspiring story of science and politics.
In 1958, the U.S. donated two mobile labs to the International Atomic Energy Agency to demonstrate how, in the wake of World War II, nuclear power could be used for good. The vehicles visited four continents, providing global scope to the project. From the book’s first spread, which refers to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and includes an image of a mushroom cloud), Rentetzi’s clear, concise text, translated from Dutch, explains the hope that the labs would allow scientists to make advances in agriculture, medicine, and industry. Scientists “with or without lab coats, with or without shoes” attended training sessions and applied what they’d learned to local challenges. De Decker’s precise, powerful line-and-color artwork—a mix of vignettes and full-page spreads, some recalling classic Northern European art—depicts people, landscapes, monuments, transport vehicles, local animals, and the inside of a science lab in the late 1950s. Details from the text are artistically integrated, like a world map and the painted flags that record the countries the mobile labs visited. While the tone is overall positive, Rentetzi acknowledges the complex political undercurrents of the project, noting that the U.S. government sought to make scientists around the world dependent on American technology, thus giving the U.S. an edge over the Soviet Union.
An enthralling historical account. (more information on the mobile labs) (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9798890632456
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clavis
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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