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Dino Wars: The Dinosaurs' Biggest, Baddest Battles
The strengths and weaknesses of each dinosaur are skillfully assessed as they are pitted against their enemies to bring realistic prehistoric struggles to life in the perfect illustrated book for the young dinosaur lover!
Who was the hunted and who was the prey and what secret weapons did each dinosaur possess? Dino Wars answers all this and more! In Dino Wars , readers can find out which dinosaur would have ended up as dinner in a tremendous struggle between Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, or who the winner might have been in the land and air battle when Pterodactylus swoops down on a herd of grazing Kannemeryeria. In this colorful, illustrated book the biggest and baddest battles of prehistory are graphically brought to life. Each dinosaur is expertly drawn and rated in terms of speed, agility, armor, strength, general scariness and special skills-and then pitted against its most ferocious enemy.
With thousands of facts on over 150 species and 200 illustrations, kids can indulge in ancient gore and learn the science and history behind their favorite evolution, habitats, physical characteristics and eating habits. While entertained by the excitement of the dinosaur wars, kids will also learn the real facts about prehistory.
Who was the hunted and who was the prey and what secret weapons did each dinosaur possess? Dino Wars answers all this and more! In Dino Wars , readers can find out which dinosaur would have ended up as dinner in a tremendous struggle between Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, or who the winner might have been in the land and air battle when Pterodactylus swoops down on a herd of grazing Kannemeryeria. In this colorful, illustrated book the biggest and baddest battles of prehistory are graphically brought to life. Each dinosaur is expertly drawn and rated in terms of speed, agility, armor, strength, general scariness and special skills-and then pitted against its most ferocious enemy.
With thousands of facts on over 150 species and 200 illustrations, kids can indulge in ancient gore and learn the science and history behind their favorite evolution, habitats, physical characteristics and eating habits. While entertained by the excitement of the dinosaur wars, kids will also learn the real facts about prehistory.
166 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 26, 2025
1 of the worst dino docs in book form ( www.amazon.com/review/R2FFY9S77ANRTK/... ): 1/5
Short version: Johnson's "Dino Wars: Discover the Deadliest Dinosaurs, Bloodiest Battles, and Super Survival Strategies of the Prehistoric World" (henceforth Wars) is basically "Jurassic Fight Club" (henceforth JFC) in book form, but worse.
Long version: Read on.
JFC is 1 of the worst dino docs. Albertonykus' "Paleogene Fight Club" sums up why ( http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/ar... ) . In this review, I list the 4 main reasons why I think Wars is similarly bad or worse.
1) Like JFC's writing, Wars' is annoyingly hyperbolic (E.g. See the Johnson quote) & repetitive (E.g. The phrase "sharp-/dagger-/jagged-toothed" is used in most of Wars' fights).
2) Like JFC's transcript, Wars' text is hit-&-miss in terms of getting the facts straight. This is especially apparent in the dino profiles because the misses stick out more with less text. That of the Triceratops profile is some of the worst: On pages 128-129, it's claimed that Triceratops had "heavy, pillarlike legs" (It didn't), that it "was too heavy to rear up on two legs" (It wasn't), that it coexisted with Albertosaurus (It didn't), & that a tyrannosaur's "best chance was to attack a Triceratops that was already wounded after a battle with a rival male in the breeding season" (as opposed to a young, old, sick, or disabled Triceratops); It's also worth mentioning that Johnson is bad at converting to metric (E.g. 7 inches =/= 20 cm).
3) Like JFC's reconstructions, Wars' are mostly not-so-good. Those by Kirk (which are outdated to varying degrees) are as good as it gets in Wars, while those by Dogi are as bad as it gets. The latter are shameless rip-offs of more famous reconstructions (E.g. The Deinonychus is a shameless rip-off of Rey's Eotyrannus), just plain abominable (E.g. The Gallimimus looks like a demented muppet with teeth), or some combination of both (E.g. See the front cover; There's a shameless rip-off of Kokoro's T. rex with 3-fingered, Alf-like hands & a shameless rip-off of Hallett's Triceratops with 4-fingered, roly-poly hands).
4) As silly & stupid as JFC's premise is (Quoting Jura: "Imagine all 4.6 billion years of prehistory as being one planet wide cage match somewhat akin to Primal Rage. Each week two animals[...]are pitted against one another"), Wars' is even worse:
-On the back cover, it's stated, "Ever wonder who would have been champ and who would have ended up as dinner if Tyrannosaurus rex had battled with Triceratops? Or who would have limped away with its tail between its legs if Allosaurus had ambushed Diplodocus? For the first time ever, learn the answers to these and hundreds of other terrifying questions in this awesome look at the world of prehistoric reptiles." Besides being wrong on many levels, said statement shows that Johnson doesn't know what makes a fight:* To quote Budilovsky/Adamson (See "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation"), "when an animal is threatened by a predator, it has two choices: stand up and fight, or run for its life"; In other words, it's not a fight if 1 of the competitors doesn't fight; That goes for 1/2 of Wars' fights (E.g. Deinonychus vs. Hypsilophodon & Gallimimus vs. Tarbosaurus). At least Blasing (I.e. The writer/co-creator/host of JFC) knows what makes a fight. Yes, JFC's fights are unrealistically dramatized, but they're still fights.
-Both JFC & Wars have misleading titles: JFC features fights between non-Jurassic animals; Similarly, Wars features fights between non-dinos. However, while all of JFC's fights are between medium to large animals that would've interacted with each other (E.g. Megalodon vs. Brygmophyseter & Arctodus vs. American lion), the same can't be said for all of Wars' fights. In fact, 1/3 of Wars' competitors are too small (I.e. Less than 6 ft long)/aquatic/aerial to have interacted with the other competitors (which are medium to large land animals), as if they were chosen half-assedly.** This is especially apparent in Chapter 2 (I.e. "PALEOZOIC PUNCHES"): Of the 6 competitors, only 3 are medium to large land animals & all 3 are herbivores that "preferred to stay out of trouble"; In other words, there are no top predators. At least JFC isn't half-assed. Yes, JFC is a bad dino doc, but it's an awesomely bad dino doc.
-Wars' rating system is flawed & inconsistent, as if to make T. rex look better than the other competitors: To quote Johnson, "Each animal is given an overall danger-level rating. This is the total of the scores for each battle tactic divided by six to give an average score"; In other words, Johnson is assuming that all battle tactics are equally important. This is especially apparent in the scores for strength (Quoting Gardom/Milner: "For large sauropod dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus, size alone was usually sufficient defence. As with elephants today, there were no predators large enough to tackle a fully grown adult") & armor: T. rex "had no body armor", yet scored an 8/10; Compare that to 1) the larger Giganotosaurus (I.e. A dino which also "had no body armor", yet scored a 4/10), & 2) the larger Deinosuchus (I.e. A non-dino which "was protected by bony plates set into tough skin", yet also scored an 8/10). At least JFC's animals aren't rated like pokemon. Yes, JFC's animals are overpowered, but they're still animals.
*E.g. Bakker's "Maximum Triceratops" (which I reviewed: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) & Gardom/Milner's "The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs" (which I reviewed: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) have previously answered the 1st & 2nd question, respectively. Also, Wars doesn't answer the 2nd question.
**Yes, large & small animals interact with each other, but not in ways that constitute the "Bloodiest Battles". Bakker put it best when he said, "a twenty-ton Brontosaurus probably didn't interact with the two-ounce mammals of Como Bluff. The brontosaur ate tree leaves and would have swallowed a mammal only by accident, as we might swallow a caterpillar hiding in a chef's salad" (See "The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction").
Quoting Johnson: "One of the most ferocious killers the world has ever known, Tyrannosaurus was king of the Cretaceous. Its name means "tyrant lizard" and was richly deserved. This bloodthirsty monster terrorized virtually all other animals of the time."
Short version: Johnson's "Dino Wars: Discover the Deadliest Dinosaurs, Bloodiest Battles, and Super Survival Strategies of the Prehistoric World" (henceforth Wars) is basically "Jurassic Fight Club" (henceforth JFC) in book form, but worse.
Long version: Read on.
JFC is 1 of the worst dino docs. Albertonykus' "Paleogene Fight Club" sums up why ( http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/ar... ) . In this review, I list the 4 main reasons why I think Wars is similarly bad or worse.
1) Like JFC's writing, Wars' is annoyingly hyperbolic (E.g. See the Johnson quote) & repetitive (E.g. The phrase "sharp-/dagger-/jagged-toothed" is used in most of Wars' fights).
2) Like JFC's transcript, Wars' text is hit-&-miss in terms of getting the facts straight. This is especially apparent in the dino profiles because the misses stick out more with less text. That of the Triceratops profile is some of the worst: On pages 128-129, it's claimed that Triceratops had "heavy, pillarlike legs" (It didn't), that it "was too heavy to rear up on two legs" (It wasn't), that it coexisted with Albertosaurus (It didn't), & that a tyrannosaur's "best chance was to attack a Triceratops that was already wounded after a battle with a rival male in the breeding season" (as opposed to a young, old, sick, or disabled Triceratops); It's also worth mentioning that Johnson is bad at converting to metric (E.g. 7 inches =/= 20 cm).
3) Like JFC's reconstructions, Wars' are mostly not-so-good. Those by Kirk (which are outdated to varying degrees) are as good as it gets in Wars, while those by Dogi are as bad as it gets. The latter are shameless rip-offs of more famous reconstructions (E.g. The Deinonychus is a shameless rip-off of Rey's Eotyrannus), just plain abominable (E.g. The Gallimimus looks like a demented muppet with teeth), or some combination of both (E.g. See the front cover; There's a shameless rip-off of Kokoro's T. rex with 3-fingered, Alf-like hands & a shameless rip-off of Hallett's Triceratops with 4-fingered, roly-poly hands).
4) As silly & stupid as JFC's premise is (Quoting Jura: "Imagine all 4.6 billion years of prehistory as being one planet wide cage match somewhat akin to Primal Rage. Each week two animals[...]are pitted against one another"), Wars' is even worse:
-On the back cover, it's stated, "Ever wonder who would have been champ and who would have ended up as dinner if Tyrannosaurus rex had battled with Triceratops? Or who would have limped away with its tail between its legs if Allosaurus had ambushed Diplodocus? For the first time ever, learn the answers to these and hundreds of other terrifying questions in this awesome look at the world of prehistoric reptiles." Besides being wrong on many levels, said statement shows that Johnson doesn't know what makes a fight:* To quote Budilovsky/Adamson (See "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation"), "when an animal is threatened by a predator, it has two choices: stand up and fight, or run for its life"; In other words, it's not a fight if 1 of the competitors doesn't fight; That goes for 1/2 of Wars' fights (E.g. Deinonychus vs. Hypsilophodon & Gallimimus vs. Tarbosaurus). At least Blasing (I.e. The writer/co-creator/host of JFC) knows what makes a fight. Yes, JFC's fights are unrealistically dramatized, but they're still fights.
-Both JFC & Wars have misleading titles: JFC features fights between non-Jurassic animals; Similarly, Wars features fights between non-dinos. However, while all of JFC's fights are between medium to large animals that would've interacted with each other (E.g. Megalodon vs. Brygmophyseter & Arctodus vs. American lion), the same can't be said for all of Wars' fights. In fact, 1/3 of Wars' competitors are too small (I.e. Less than 6 ft long)/aquatic/aerial to have interacted with the other competitors (which are medium to large land animals), as if they were chosen half-assedly.** This is especially apparent in Chapter 2 (I.e. "PALEOZOIC PUNCHES"): Of the 6 competitors, only 3 are medium to large land animals & all 3 are herbivores that "preferred to stay out of trouble"; In other words, there are no top predators. At least JFC isn't half-assed. Yes, JFC is a bad dino doc, but it's an awesomely bad dino doc.
-Wars' rating system is flawed & inconsistent, as if to make T. rex look better than the other competitors: To quote Johnson, "Each animal is given an overall danger-level rating. This is the total of the scores for each battle tactic divided by six to give an average score"; In other words, Johnson is assuming that all battle tactics are equally important. This is especially apparent in the scores for strength (Quoting Gardom/Milner: "For large sauropod dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus, size alone was usually sufficient defence. As with elephants today, there were no predators large enough to tackle a fully grown adult") & armor: T. rex "had no body armor", yet scored an 8/10; Compare that to 1) the larger Giganotosaurus (I.e. A dino which also "had no body armor", yet scored a 4/10), & 2) the larger Deinosuchus (I.e. A non-dino which "was protected by bony plates set into tough skin", yet also scored an 8/10). At least JFC's animals aren't rated like pokemon. Yes, JFC's animals are overpowered, but they're still animals.
*E.g. Bakker's "Maximum Triceratops" (which I reviewed: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) & Gardom/Milner's "The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs" (which I reviewed: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) have previously answered the 1st & 2nd question, respectively. Also, Wars doesn't answer the 2nd question.
**Yes, large & small animals interact with each other, but not in ways that constitute the "Bloodiest Battles". Bakker put it best when he said, "a twenty-ton Brontosaurus probably didn't interact with the two-ounce mammals of Como Bluff. The brontosaur ate tree leaves and would have swallowed a mammal only by accident, as we might swallow a caterpillar hiding in a chef's salad" (See "The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mystery of the Dinosaurs and Their Extinction").
Quoting Johnson: "One of the most ferocious killers the world has ever known, Tyrannosaurus was king of the Cretaceous. Its name means "tyrant lizard" and was richly deserved. This bloodthirsty monster terrorized virtually all other animals of the time."
September 30, 2020
I'll keep this review short:
STRENGTHS:
1) Informative
2) Nice illustrations
3) Neat, organized
WEAKNESSES:
1) Outdated information (normal but still)
2) Biased author (at many large carnivores the writer increases unjustifiably the ratings - at many herbivores he praises and then gives a low rating.)
These two weaknesses, though outnumbered by the strengths, are very amplified and the kids reading this may not understand it but it's important from a scientific perspective. The book however is enjoyable to read.
STRENGTHS:
1) Informative
2) Nice illustrations
3) Neat, organized
WEAKNESSES:
1) Outdated information (normal but still)
2) Biased author (at many large carnivores the writer increases unjustifiably the ratings - at many herbivores he praises and then gives a low rating.)
These two weaknesses, though outnumbered by the strengths, are very amplified and the kids reading this may not understand it but it's important from a scientific perspective. The book however is enjoyable to read.
October 8, 2023
This was a really cool, very detailed books about dinosaurs, who are the hunters and who are the hunted. Recommend for older kids for educational purposes but smaller ones would like to look at the pictures.
February 20, 2017
This is like the most hefty, detailed WHO WOULD WIN? book ever! Dinosaur lovers will go crazy for it... but I personally was quite overwhelmed. :-)
November 13, 2025
I think million years ago the dino wars
April 7, 2011
Dino Wars
I just finished the amazing book of Dino Wars by Jinny Johnson. It is a very interesting book and this is what it is about.
This book Dino Wars is about Dinosaurs and how they used to battle for survival. It shows you what type of dinosaurs lived in what time period, shows you a battle between dinosaurs in that time period, and the dinosaurs that lived in the ocean or land. Also it gives you a danger level based on the dinosaur’s ability of strength, speed, agility, scariness, and special attack. The pictures the book has are amazing and extremely detailed. At the back of the book it has the score cards giving you the dominants for each time period. But the winner of all the semi-finalists is the Tyrannosaurs Rex. He has the most danger level (8.5) and has the most” scariness” of all dinosaurs.
I love the pictures and how the dinosaurs are positioned. I especially like the battle they show you in every time period. The book was detailed and very accurate. I also like looking at the pictures of the world in that time period.
I liked how the author organized the book. I also liked how he put a battle of each time period. I really enjoyed the author’s organization and I hope to read another dinosaur book again sometime. I give it an eight out of ten, and I really recommend this book to anybody interested in dinosaurs. If you read it you will love it…..I promise.
I just finished the amazing book of Dino Wars by Jinny Johnson. It is a very interesting book and this is what it is about.
This book Dino Wars is about Dinosaurs and how they used to battle for survival. It shows you what type of dinosaurs lived in what time period, shows you a battle between dinosaurs in that time period, and the dinosaurs that lived in the ocean or land. Also it gives you a danger level based on the dinosaur’s ability of strength, speed, agility, scariness, and special attack. The pictures the book has are amazing and extremely detailed. At the back of the book it has the score cards giving you the dominants for each time period. But the winner of all the semi-finalists is the Tyrannosaurs Rex. He has the most danger level (8.5) and has the most” scariness” of all dinosaurs.
I love the pictures and how the dinosaurs are positioned. I especially like the battle they show you in every time period. The book was detailed and very accurate. I also like looking at the pictures of the world in that time period.
I liked how the author organized the book. I also liked how he put a battle of each time period. I really enjoyed the author’s organization and I hope to read another dinosaur book again sometime. I give it an eight out of ten, and I really recommend this book to anybody interested in dinosaurs. If you read it you will love it…..I promise.
July 19, 2015
Love the concept! Dino strengths/weaknesses organized by time period with a set-up similar to a Pokemon card. Some pages highlight special Dino features such as "flight", and some pages pit two dinosaurs against each other describing how they fought each other and the probably outcomes of their battles.
Excellent book for dino lovers!
Excellent book for dino lovers!
July 26, 2008
Another dino fave in our house. The dinosaurs are all rated -strengths, weaknesses, secret weapons, battle styles, etc. and then matched in battles. It's very interactive and engaging...we have to check this out from the library several times a year!
June 14, 2013
This was a really cool, very detailed books about dinosaurs, who are the hunters and who are the hunted. Recommend for older kids for educational purposes but smaller ones would like to look at the pictures.
June 10, 2023
My son loves dinosaurs. We read this together (as I loved dinosaurs as a child as well). It was interesting to read about all of the different dinosaurs and engaging in conversation with my 5 year old about who would win and why. Very fun yet extremely educational!
November 4, 2009
The reason why i like this book is because its fun
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews