Dinosaur Cousins? - Softcover

BERNARD MOST has written and illustrated many popular children's books, including The Cow That Went OINK, If the Dinosaurs Came Back, How Big Were the Dinosaurs?, Whatever Happened to the Dinosaurs?, and Where to Look for a Dinosaur. He lives in New York.

Grade 1-3 It helps, when studying dinosaurs, to have a good imagination and an inquisitive mind. Since most young children are well-equipped with both imagination and curiosity, it's refreshing to find a dinosaur book whose premise emphasizes imaginative hypothesizing over dry bones and dull facts. Unfortunately, this book doesn't quite pull it off. The premise is good; to help children understand dinosaurs, Dinosaurs Cousins? compares dinosaurs to animals that are living now. For example, the well-armored ankylosaurus is compared to a modern-day armadillo, while a duck-billed dinosaur gets matched up with (what else?) a duck-billed duck. The problem is that the book doesn't always clearly differentiate between scientific fact and/or hypothesis, and imaginative fancy. The aforementioned comparison of ducks and duck-billed dinosaurs is a case in point; yes, scientists now believe birds are related to dinosaurs, but not necessarily because both have duck bills. The illustrations confuse the issue even further; duck-billed dinosaurs are shown with the same coloring as the ducks; and drawings of a rhino and a triceratops are almost indistinguishable. True, a child might not notice or care, but books such as Aliki's My Visit to the Dinosaurs (Crowell, 1985) and Carrick's Patrick's Dinosaur (Houghton, 1983) are clearer in both their purpose and their intent. Cathryn A. Camper, Minneapolis Pub . Lib .
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.