Dinosaurs! (illus)

Dinosaurs! follows the evolution of these spectacular creatures from their earliest beginnings as little fellows who had to evade attacks from giant croc relatives to today’s living dinosaurs. Natural History Magazine THIS BOOK COMBINES THE TALENTS of two of the more imaginative (some might say controversial) workers in dinosaur studies. Robert Bakker, whose curriculum includes stints at both Harvard and Yale, as well as the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, Wyoming, was the enfant terrible of the dinosaur renaissance in the 1970s, when his research, combined with similar studies by his colleagues, laid to rest the midcentury vision of dinosaurs as inept, maladapted failures. Rey's dinosaur reconstructions (digitally superimposed for this book onto scenic background photographs) are so brilliantly colored they are almost garish, and the figures are probably the most dynamically posed of any in the tradition of paleoart. Yet despite the bold effects, the results are surprisingly mainstream, in the best sense of the word. That is to say, few dinosaur paleontologists today would find the information and reconstructions in Dinosaurs! at all unreasonable (except perhaps for the imaginative colors). If you are looking for a short, colorful, easy-to-read overview of the new understanding of dinosaurian diversity, this book will serve as an excellent introduction for young readers. Follows the evolution of the "terrible lizards" from their earliest beginnings as small creatures evading attacks from giant crocodile relatives to today's birds Looks at how paleontologists have learned about the characteristics of different dinosaurs through the study of fossils