The Best Book of Dinosaurs

by Christopher Maynard

The Best Book of Dinosaurs by Christopher Maynard is a thrilling look at the ever-popular world of dinosaurs--their size, their lives, their diets, and their mysterious extinction. Children's interest is further excited as the book zooms in on today's dinosaur discoveries--how scientists find and date fossils, and how whole dinosaur skeletons are pieced together.

Genres: Picture Books, Nonfiction, Dinosaurs, Childrens

32 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 1998

Reviews

[Eshan Hussain · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Best Book of Dinosaurs is an informational book that educates the reader about animals from a long time ago. This book was amazing and I felt like I learned a lot from this book.

The author Chris Maynard uses an unusual writing and illustration style to keep the reader interested. Throughout the book, Maynard wrote sentences all over the pages to correlate with an image next to the sentence. The book was about all of the stages through a dinosaur’s life. First, the book starts from when a dinosaur was a baby, and how the baby eggs were protected. Next, it talks about how the baby dinosaurs were raised, as well as how they grew up living in herds or packs. Then, it talks about the different types of dinosaurs: herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Finally, he ends the book by explaining how dinosaurs were extinct by a meteor that hit the earth, and how we use dinosaur bones to better understand the inhabitants of earth that came before us.

One thing that I enjoyed about the book was how the author left no page left without illustration. This helped me gain a better understanding of the size of dinosaur eggs, footprints, and dinosaurs themselves. I also believe that the concise information that the author gave throughout the book made it more readable to readers.

One thing that the reader can learn is the behavior of dinosaurs. For example, the author describes how dinosaurs can hunt and how they lived. Another thing that the reader can learn is how we examine dinosaur bones and how we preserve them in museums.

This book is an anti-bias book because it focuses on various animals and how dinosaurs did not discriminate against each other. It teaches the reader how natural selection works as well.

[Alyson Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This dinosaur book goes through all the stages and processes of a dinosaur's predicted life. It starts out by talking about baby dinosaurs, then goes into talking about what certain dinosaurs ate and ended with the meteor that killed all the dinosaurs. I enjoyed this book because it was a very good easy read for children. There are a ton of pictures to help describe what the text says. I would definitely recommend this book

[Wesam Karam · Rating 4 out of 5]

مهما عرفت عنه لا أكتفى منه
عالم جميل جدا

[Herman Diaz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Definitely NOT the best ( www.amazon.com/review/R797Y6F6B6JEW/r... ): 1/5

In my experience, when a non-fiction dino book is given a superlative title, it's being set up for failure. As far as I know, only 1 such book lives up to its title & Maynard's "The Best Book of Dinosaurs" (henceforth BB) is definitely NOT it or even just decent in its own right.* In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why I think that is.

1) BB's life reconstructions are mostly not-so-good. Those by Kirk are as good as it gets in BB, while those by Forsey are as bad as it gets: In reference to Kirk, the ornithischians & Barosaurus are depicted with too many claws; Otherwise, the dinos are mostly accurate for the time & completely awesome for all time (E.g. See the Deinonychus on the back cover, which have tiger stripes & a lightning storm background); In reference to Forsey, I've said all I have to say in my review of Theodorou's "I Wonder Why Triceratops Had Horns" ("Wonder's more realistic reconstructions" are by Forsey: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3493788414 ); Unfortunately, most of BB's life reconstructions are by Forsey. Those by Field fall somewhere in between, but more towards Forsey (E.g. See the Triceratops on the front cover, which have cartoonishly angry eyes & 4 clawed fingers per hand).

2) BB is a confusing mess in terms of organization. There isn't even an Introduction. BB just begins with a chapter about baby dinos & continues with no logical transitions or flow between the chapters.

3) BB fails to cover many dino-related subjects & those that are covered are done so in an insufficient manner:** Sometimes, it simplifies things to the point of being meaningless; This is especially apparent in the chapter about the dino extinction because 1) the main text explains nothing about the science behind the dino extinction story, & 2) the sidebar text needlessly re-tells said story; Other times, it's just plain wrong; This is especially apparent in said chapter because it's claimed that 1) the asteroid "hit Earth in Central America" (Last I checked, Mexico =/= Central America), & 2) only "some scientists think that dinosaurs were the ancestors of modern birds" (Quoting Witmer from a 1995 book: "There are so many derived similarities between birds and these Deinonychus-like theropod dinosaurs that most paleontologists today believe birds are theropod dinosaurs!").

*By "1 such book", I mean Holtz's "Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages" (Dinosaurs for short).

**By "many", I mean half of all the dino-related subjects a decent introduction to dinos would cover. Using Gardom/Milner's "The Natural History Museum Book of Dinosaurs" as a guide, BB fails to cover "The dinosaur world", "Getting about", "Living animals", "Dinosaurs and people", & "Dinosaurs and birds".

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a fine book, but I don't know that it's the best. Not that I can think of a better off the top of my head, but it hasn't really lingered in my mind as amazing or anything.


Library copy.

[Dubovoyalena]

1-5, dinosaurs

[Abrar AlFouzan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! so precise, yet filled with information. I loved it!

[Cheyenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good information, especially on eggs.

[Rose]

567.9 May

[Kaylin]

"The Best Book of Dinosaurs" is appropriate for grades K-2. It has realistic artwork and details about all kinds of dinosaurs, like T-Rex, Brachiosaurus, Allosaurus and more. It also goes into detail about the kinds of food they eat and how they give birth. There are step-by-step illustrations that explain how they lived and disappeared. It is a good read filled with useful information. The pictures depict dinosaurs of all sorts doing different things, like eating raw meat, fighting, and growing scales. It talks about the different kinds of tails and how scientists now study their bones. There is a glossary at the end. I feel that in every class, there is at least one student who is extremely enthusiastic about dinosaurs, and they want to learn everything they can about them. An activity I would do would be to have each student pick their favorite dinosaur from the book and do research about it. This could be done by rereading our book, reading other books, or I would help them search the internet. They could then make a fact chart about their dinosaur. Another activity would be to make your own dinosaur using handprints and paint. Students could use their hands and fingers to create their own dinosaur on paper in all different colors.

[Jessika Brokel]

This book is great for students who love dinosaurs. It teaches students about the diverse types of dinos, how they protected themselves, what they ate, how the age, how they became and what caused them to become extinct, and how fossils are found.