Here's the cocoa table book of the year, a treasured present for all your dinosaur-obsessed friends and relatives, ages 3 to 300, who will be bowled over and enraptured by Sabuda and Reinhart's latest feat of paper engineering genius. It's a look at all things dinosaur, packing in facts on more than 50 species, and the six major watercolored pop-ups are spectacular. Just wait till you open to the huge and toothsome head of T. rex, though if you’re awed by this king of the carnivores, the text notes that the recently discovered carcharodontosaurus, in Africa, was 2,000 pounds heavier, and gigantosaurus from Argentina was about a yard longer. The endlessly inventive layout incorporates many side booklets that pop up, too, which could be destroyed by inquisitive and eager hands, but it's well worth it. Raid the 567.9 section of your library—that’s one Dewey number kids learn by heart—to fuel the ensuing dino mania after you show your kids this book, and then wow them some more with the companion books, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Mega-Beasts and Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters.
Reviewed by JF.
Themes: ANIMALS. SCIENCE & SCIENTISTS. DINOSAURS.
- Be forewarned: the book is so enticing that children will find it impossible to keep their hands off it, possibly causing problems with the delicate pop-ups.
- Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal
- With fascinating facts accompanying intricate creations by two master paper engineers, this book is eons away from your basic, dry encyclopedia.
- Child Magazine
- With so many layers and moving paper parts-watercolored on all sides-readers may begin to feel like paleontologists unearthing fossils. Dino fans won't be disappointed.
- Publishers Weekly
- I have observed many children looking at this fabulous book for the first time and have felt, just as they did, like exclaiming "FANTASTIC!"
- Sheilah Egan, Children