Dinosaur Days

April 15, 2014
A classic informational early reader gets a substantial, long-overdue update. Kirkus criticized the 1985 edition for conveying outdated and misleading information--chivalrously leaving the stodgy colored-pencil illustrations unmentioned. All of that has been addressed here. Revised by the late Milton's brother Kent, the text highlights or at least names over a dozen dinos, from the diminutive Citipati to the humongous Argentinosaurus, "as big as a house, longer than three buses, and as heavy as thirteen elephants!" Prehistoric contemporaries that were not dinosaurs also get nods, as do modern paleontology, the great extinction and the continued survival of birds: "So the dinosaur days go on." Tempesta's cover painting of a brightly patterned Triceratops being attacked by a T. Rex with a feathery spinal fringe opens a suite of equally dramatic group and single portraits. They feature mottled monsters viewed from low angles to accentuate their massiveness and reflect current thinking about feathers and coloration. Eye candy and intellectual nourishment alike for newly independent readers. (Informational early reader. 6-8)

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