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Day of the Dinosaurs
Learn everything you ever wanted to know about dinosaurs in this book that allows you to compare the biggest, fastest and fiercest creatures of the land, sea and sky from four different prehistoric periods: the Triassic, the early Jurassic, the Late Jurassic and the Cretaceous. Sections on diet, weapons and defence and dinosaur senses make this a comprehensive introduction to one of the earth's most successful animals. Fact-filled, fully illustrated and in an exciting large format, this is a thrilling read for any budding paleontologist.
80 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 2016
3 people are currently reading
391 people want to read
About the author
Steve Brusatte
19 books498 followersAuthor writes under the penname Stephen Brusatte as well.
Stephen Louis Brusatte (born April 24, 1984) is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, who specializes in the anatomy and evolution of dinosaurs. He was educated at the University of Chicago for his BS degree, at the University of Bristol for his MSc on a Marshall Scholarship, and finally at the Columbia University for MPhil and PhD. He is currently a Reader in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh. In addition to his scientific papers and technical monographs, his popular book Dinosaurs (2008) and the textbook Dinosaur Paleobiology (2012) earned him accolades, and he became the resident palaeontologist and scientific consultant for the BBC Earth and 20th Century Fox's 2013 film Walking With Dinosaurs, which is followed by his popular book Walking with Dinosaurs Encyclopedia. His most recent book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (2018), written for the adult lay person, won widespread acclaim, and was a New York Times bestseller.
Stephen Louis Brusatte (born April 24, 1984) is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, who specializes in the anatomy and evolution of dinosaurs. He was educated at the University of Chicago for his BS degree, at the University of Bristol for his MSc on a Marshall Scholarship, and finally at the Columbia University for MPhil and PhD. He is currently a Reader in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh. In addition to his scientific papers and technical monographs, his popular book Dinosaurs (2008) and the textbook Dinosaur Paleobiology (2012) earned him accolades, and he became the resident palaeontologist and scientific consultant for the BBC Earth and 20th Century Fox's 2013 film Walking With Dinosaurs, which is followed by his popular book Walking with Dinosaurs Encyclopedia. His most recent book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World (2018), written for the adult lay person, won widespread acclaim, and was a New York Times bestseller.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 12, 2021
мейбі краща дитяча книга про динозаврів для дошкільного віку
June 19, 2025
Annoyingly bad ( www.amazon.com/review/R3ONMHUZP9NE6O/... ): 1/5
I was originally planning on reviewing Brusatte's "Day of the Dinosaurs: Step into a spectacular prehistoric world" (henceforth DD) the way I usually review bad dino books. However, I then remembered that Kirkus's DD review is so perfect (especially when it comes to criticizing the paleoart & writing: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/st... ) that I can't possibly top it, so I won't even try. Instead, in this review, I'll point you to Kirkus's DD review & add my own thoughts as well:
-The paleoart is annoyingly inconsistent in 2 major ways: 1) The appearance of a given environment (I.e. Sometimes, the ground is a darker color than the sky or the water; Other times, it's a lighter color; Still other times, they're so similar in color that it's hard to tell which is which); 2) The appearance of a given species (E.g. Ceratosaurus has relatively-long limbs sometimes, but more normally-proportioned limbs other times).
-The paleoart is also annoyingly outdated/abominable. This is especially apparent in the shrink-wrapped heads of 1) the sauropods like Cetiosaurus because they're also depicted with fat & shapeless bodies (See the front cover), & 2) the ornithischians like Triceratops because, despite their beaks & cheeks, even they're depicted with big exposed teeth.
-The paleoart is also annoyingly anachronistic. This is especially apparent in the "EARLY-MIDDLE JURASSIC" chapter. In it, 2 Early Jurassic North American Dilophosaurus stalk a Middle Jurassic English Cetiosaurus.*
-The "FIELD NOTES" part of each chapter reminds me of the Holtz quote below. More specifically, showing accurate skeletal reconstructions & inaccurate life reconstructions side-by-side shows how much they conflict with each other.
-In reference to the annoyingly "forced value judgements", the worst 1 is about Dorygnathus: 1st, see the Brusatte quote below; Then, compare it to "Dorygnathus tweets its way through development": https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2...
-The text is annoyingly hit-&-miss in terms of getting the facts straight: Sometimes, it's contradicted by the paleoart (E.g. "Heterodontosaurus[...]is fluffy, covered with what look like long hairs all over its body"); Other times, it's just plain wrong (E.g. The Brusatte quote about Velociraptor; For more info: https://archive.ph/qCcIC ).
-If you want a good alternative to DD, get Bakker's "The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs" (which I reviewed: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3526058137 ).
*Even if they did live together (which they didn't), Dilophosaurus was a predator of relatively-small prey.
Quoting Holtz ( www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-... ): "Paleoart is, admittedly, a difficult enterprise: after all, its subject matter is long dead, and science can never expect to know very much about the creaturers' external surfaces or, for that matter, any of their other perishable features. Nevertheless, there is one inviolate rule of dinosaur restoration: if the known fossil skeleton conflicts with the shape of the reconstruction, the reconstruction must be wrong. That rule gives the casual reader at least a fighting chance of separating the wheat from the chaff: distinguishing books that depict restorations consistent with fossil specimens from books that have more in common with medieval bestiaries, conjured from rumor and imagination alone. One reliable clue that a book belongs to the former group is the inclusion of drawings or photographs of the fossil skeletons on which the restorations are based."
Quoting Brusatte: "You turn your head in disgust as you put down your binoculars. There is no other way to put it: the flying animal you have seen is ugly. It kind of looks like a big furry bat. This is Dorygnathus, a type of pterosaur."
I was originally planning on reviewing Brusatte's "Day of the Dinosaurs: Step into a spectacular prehistoric world" (henceforth DD) the way I usually review bad dino books. However, I then remembered that Kirkus's DD review is so perfect (especially when it comes to criticizing the paleoart & writing: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/st... ) that I can't possibly top it, so I won't even try. Instead, in this review, I'll point you to Kirkus's DD review & add my own thoughts as well:
-The paleoart is annoyingly inconsistent in 2 major ways: 1) The appearance of a given environment (I.e. Sometimes, the ground is a darker color than the sky or the water; Other times, it's a lighter color; Still other times, they're so similar in color that it's hard to tell which is which); 2) The appearance of a given species (E.g. Ceratosaurus has relatively-long limbs sometimes, but more normally-proportioned limbs other times).
-The paleoart is also annoyingly outdated/abominable. This is especially apparent in the shrink-wrapped heads of 1) the sauropods like Cetiosaurus because they're also depicted with fat & shapeless bodies (See the front cover), & 2) the ornithischians like Triceratops because, despite their beaks & cheeks, even they're depicted with big exposed teeth.
-The paleoart is also annoyingly anachronistic. This is especially apparent in the "EARLY-MIDDLE JURASSIC" chapter. In it, 2 Early Jurassic North American Dilophosaurus stalk a Middle Jurassic English Cetiosaurus.*
-The "FIELD NOTES" part of each chapter reminds me of the Holtz quote below. More specifically, showing accurate skeletal reconstructions & inaccurate life reconstructions side-by-side shows how much they conflict with each other.
-In reference to the annoyingly "forced value judgements", the worst 1 is about Dorygnathus: 1st, see the Brusatte quote below; Then, compare it to "Dorygnathus tweets its way through development": https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2...
-The text is annoyingly hit-&-miss in terms of getting the facts straight: Sometimes, it's contradicted by the paleoart (E.g. "Heterodontosaurus[...]is fluffy, covered with what look like long hairs all over its body"); Other times, it's just plain wrong (E.g. The Brusatte quote about Velociraptor; For more info: https://archive.ph/qCcIC ).
-If you want a good alternative to DD, get Bakker's "The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs" (which I reviewed: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3526058137 ).
*Even if they did live together (which they didn't), Dilophosaurus was a predator of relatively-small prey.
Quoting Holtz ( www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-... ): "Paleoart is, admittedly, a difficult enterprise: after all, its subject matter is long dead, and science can never expect to know very much about the creaturers' external surfaces or, for that matter, any of their other perishable features. Nevertheless, there is one inviolate rule of dinosaur restoration: if the known fossil skeleton conflicts with the shape of the reconstruction, the reconstruction must be wrong. That rule gives the casual reader at least a fighting chance of separating the wheat from the chaff: distinguishing books that depict restorations consistent with fossil specimens from books that have more in common with medieval bestiaries, conjured from rumor and imagination alone. One reliable clue that a book belongs to the former group is the inclusion of drawings or photographs of the fossil skeletons on which the restorations are based."
Quoting Brusatte: "You turn your head in disgust as you put down your binoculars. There is no other way to put it: the flying animal you have seen is ugly. It kind of looks like a big furry bat. This is Dorygnathus, a type of pterosaur."
November 13, 2023
A good book for kids. I like the opening chart showing Triassic (252-201 million years ago) <-->Jurassic <--> Cretaceous; mapped to a common dinosaur; mapped to the continent configuration on the Earth.
Dinosaurs in a semi-cartoon style with many different rainbow of colors. Hmm...
The text is rather hard to read as the background colors will morph behind the text, disrupting the reading.
There is a cool "Scale" drawing showing a human next to each of the dinos on that pair of pages, but you have to MANUALLY map which dino goes to which pix. Some pix in the silhouette are reverse images of the page pictures. There is room for a simple ABCDEF on each dino, then ABCDEF on the Scale pix. I spotted this problem immediately. Who edited this book?
I greatly liked all the "Field Notes" sections interspersed. Knife-shaped teed explained; Plant-eating skull; Slash and grab claws.
But book looks like a graphic artist laid it out with too much emphasis on aesthetics. Sure, the pages are very eye-catching when you open the book. It just becomes more difficult to read. You can read snippets, but you can't READ this entire book with any smooth flow.
Definitely child/middle-grade for the pixs.
Dinosaurs in a semi-cartoon style with many different rainbow of colors. Hmm...
The text is rather hard to read as the background colors will morph behind the text, disrupting the reading.
There is a cool "Scale" drawing showing a human next to each of the dinos on that pair of pages, but you have to MANUALLY map which dino goes to which pix. Some pix in the silhouette are reverse images of the page pictures. There is room for a simple ABCDEF on each dino, then ABCDEF on the Scale pix. I spotted this problem immediately. Who edited this book?
I greatly liked all the "Field Notes" sections interspersed. Knife-shaped teed explained; Plant-eating skull; Slash and grab claws.
But book looks like a graphic artist laid it out with too much emphasis on aesthetics. Sure, the pages are very eye-catching when you open the book. It just becomes more difficult to read. You can read snippets, but you can't READ this entire book with any smooth flow.
Definitely child/middle-grade for the pixs.
February 22, 2017
I won this on a Goodreads giveaway. My son was so excited when I opened the box and out came a dinosaur book! He has been asking for a new dinosaur book, but he has so many it isn't easy to find one that covers anything new. Here he was able to learn more about some more obscure dinosaurs. He had me reading passages left and right. It is a huge hit!
April 20, 2020
Great book to get started with the fascinating dinosaur world. My kid was going back and forth checking all references and understand the evolution. Remembered my early years when I learned about these magnificent reptiles. We (especially him) had a blast!
December 4, 2019
Loved the illustrations and the writing style. The subtle second person adventure component was very fun and I feel like I learned quite a bit about various dinosaurs.
September 25, 2022
A treasure trove of dinosaur information.
February 12, 2017
I really liked the approach of this book. I initially thought it was a much shorter picture book, and when I picked it up and saw how much text there was, I planned to just skim it. But then I was drawn in to the 2nd-person adventure story: "Be careful! This is not an easy journey. Danger lurks around every corner...Always be alert, watch your back, and try to keep your distance from the dinosaurs." It's like a narrated ride at Disney World, with tons of cool facts thrown in!
Where I felt let down was in the graphics. The art itself is cool. But the Scale sidebar on most spreads is confusing. First the spreads generally show one cohesive scene. But apparently the animals within the scene are not drawn in scale to each other. VERY confusing. And then the Scale box, using silhouettes to show sizes of animals relative to humans, is not well done, to me. Some of the dinos/creatures are flipped from how they are in the scene or positioned differently, and it took some puzzling out on some spreads to match the silhouettes with the animals as drawn in the scene.
Also, I didn't read every word of the fact boxes, which there are tons of and which give all sorts of cool facts, still in 2nd person: "Troodon: The dog-sized Troodon moves fast, hides easily, and has such a large brain that it can outsmart any other dinosaur. Luckily for you, it usually picks on small animals, like lizards and frogs. It even eats plants. But you never know when a Troodon may decide to hunt something bigger..." Each fact box has a line of small dots connecting it to the dinosaur it's describing. This is a good thing, because a spread generally has 5-8 different species. But on page 65, there's an error in the graphics. The fact box about velociraptors, on a page showing several of them attacking a large herbivorous dino, points to the herbivore instead of the raptors. I could spot this, even with my limited dino knowledge. This makes me wonder if there are other errors I don't know enough to spot.
So, I loved the approach, but I felt the graphics/design let down the book somewhat.
Where I felt let down was in the graphics. The art itself is cool. But the Scale sidebar on most spreads is confusing. First the spreads generally show one cohesive scene. But apparently the animals within the scene are not drawn in scale to each other. VERY confusing. And then the Scale box, using silhouettes to show sizes of animals relative to humans, is not well done, to me. Some of the dinos/creatures are flipped from how they are in the scene or positioned differently, and it took some puzzling out on some spreads to match the silhouettes with the animals as drawn in the scene.
Also, I didn't read every word of the fact boxes, which there are tons of and which give all sorts of cool facts, still in 2nd person: "Troodon: The dog-sized Troodon moves fast, hides easily, and has such a large brain that it can outsmart any other dinosaur. Luckily for you, it usually picks on small animals, like lizards and frogs. It even eats plants. But you never know when a Troodon may decide to hunt something bigger..." Each fact box has a line of small dots connecting it to the dinosaur it's describing. This is a good thing, because a spread generally has 5-8 different species. But on page 65, there's an error in the graphics. The fact box about velociraptors, on a page showing several of them attacking a large herbivorous dino, points to the herbivore instead of the raptors. I could spot this, even with my limited dino knowledge. This makes me wonder if there are other errors I don't know enough to spot.
So, I loved the approach, but I felt the graphics/design let down the book somewhat.
February 2, 2017
I selected this book because due to the fact that I am fascinated with dinosaurs. When I was a kid, I watched "Land Before Time" and loved dinosaurs. I like the fact that this book has a description of the different time spans in history in which dinosaurs appeared in. Each dinosaur listed includes a description about them that including facts such as their size, teeth, location, and different body parts like their skull and wings. The dinosaurs had more than one picture to be seen, which made the longer words and uncommon pronunciation easier to understand. The genre for this book is nature and wildlife since it deals with dinosaurs. The intended audience would be for intermediate grades from 3rd through 6th because of the unusual pronunciation of words and the more text on one page that differ from primary books. The fiction book that I paired this with is called "Danny and the Dinosaur Too Tall." In the nonfiction book, dinosaurs are viewed as dangerous and extinct. In fictional kids book, the dinosaur is a pet and is shown to be nice and well behaved. I think these too books differ a lot, but both deal with dinosaurs as the main focus.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews