It's Not the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy! Follow the Trail: Baby Dinosaurs (Take a Peek) by Dawn Strett

CHASE THE BABY DINOSAURS AS THEY STOMP ALONG THE GLITTERY TRAIL.

KEEP YOUR FINGER ON THE LINE. LOOP AROUND, AROUND, AROUND. ZIGZAG...!

Preschoolers are always on the trail in search of dinosaur data; that's why there are so many dino books for the early childhood education crowding the market and shelves. And here comes Dorling Kindersley Press (a.k.a, DK) with another one just made for the preschool trade.

All their favorite dinos are there in all their juvenile charm--a baby Allosaurus, Diplodocus, Styracosaurus, and one newcomer to the lexicon from China, Tuojiangosaurus, a worthy entry with spikes down his backbone and right down to the tip of the big, strong tail he uses for whacking his enemies. But don't worry; there are no frightful dino-fights in Dawn Strett's and Charlotte Millner's little toy and movable board book suitable for toddler and preschooler's yen for more of those prehistoric reptilia.

With die-cut Take-A-Peek peepholes on each page that help young experts predict the next critter on the following page and a sparkly green ribbon to finger-trace the story line, kids will add to their dino vocabulary and gain some facts about each one in series, and kids will likely want to return often to the book to "read" it for themselves. In author Dawn Strett's and artist Charlotte Millner's Follow the Trail: Baby Dinosaurs (Dorling Kindersley, 2017), little dinosaurs are done with just enough detail for the youngest dinosaur devotee and set against DK's trademark white pages in eye-catching spot-art double-page -spread style. There's even a "quiz" at the end which challenges little ones to match the juvenile critters with their adult versions in a sort of junior appendix just right for the preschool dino expert.

Other titles in this engaging series include Follow the Trail Wild Animals and Follow the Trail: Bugs.

Dino Shape Up! Dinoshapes (Alphaprints) by Roger Priddy

T. REX IS A VERY HAPPY MOTHER

HATCHING TWO EGGS--REXY AND HER BROTHER.

In Roger Priddy's newest in his Alphaprints series, Alphaprints: Dinoshapes (Priddy Books/St. Martin's Press, 2016) Priddy gives us a different way to see Tyrannosaurus Rex, That traditional reptilian bad guy is seen as a proud mother of twins. Other dinosaurs appear in short order. Baronyx, Diplodicus, Tricerotops, Ankylosaurus, and Pterodactyl also make cameo appearances, all represented in raised fingerprint shapes, the tactile star of their own two-page spreads in bright colors, with pronunciation guides, each one doing his own thing, from eating starfish to playing soccer.

In this colorful board book, Priddy even offers a bit of dino humor, with a succession of big beast bites taken right out of the cover and each page,providing a thumb-index to each dino. It's a fun way to introduce the most popular dinosaurs to preschoolers who dote on the big critters.

Moving On Up! Smithsonian Readers: Seriously Amazing Level 2

"Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian is the world's largest museum and research complex, consisting of 19 museums and galleries. The Smithsonian's vision is to shape the future by preserving our heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing our resources with the world."

The Smithsonian's rationale above includes sharing their resources with elementary students, as evidenced in their new series, Smithsonian Readers.

Part of a series of four sturdy volumes, Smithsonian Readers shares the wealth of knowledge within their domain with children reading at the Grade 2-3 levels. In this second volume, the language is adjusted to complement the developing skills of young readers, offering more complex vocabulary, more advanced phonic structures and increasingly complex sentence structures in the text, with the goal of helping shape the readings to the content comprehension level of elementary students.

Like Level 1, this volume is divided in to six broad areas of science--Nighttime Animals, Sea Life, Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Creatures, The Solar System, Baby Anlmals, and the Human Body. Each subject area is broken down into subsections that provide understanding of the relevant details. For example, the section on nocturnal animals deals with why some animals are nocturnal (keeping cool in hot climes, avoiding predators), the unique senses of nocturnal animals (large, adapted eyes and ears and an extended sense of touch and what and how they hunt for food). Specific nocturnal creatures include both the familiar bat and owl and the lesser-known Baird's tapir and wombat. Similarly, the section on Sea Life considers adaptations of ocean life from mollusks to sharks, corals to whales under the surface and sea birds who spend most of their time in the air over the oceans.

Each of the six section offers dozens of color photos and well-organized information on subjects that young readers find fascinating--from the ever-popular tyrannosaurus rex to the 67 (and counting) moons of Jupiter. Each section is provided with a glossary, which repeats the special terms introduced in the text in bold-faced type, a set of self-testing quizzes in familiar multiple-choice form, and special press-out cards for review. sharing, and games.

Available singly or in a set of four volumes with additional learning materials and activities (see previous review here), this is an worthy addition to the early elementary science curriculum, particularly useful for home schoolers and as enrichment activities for individuals and small groups in the classroom.

Back to the Drawing Board, Steve Spielberg! Scaly Spotted Feathery Frilled by Catherine Thimmesh

What did the dinosaurs really look like?

Since none of our kind were around to make cave paintings for us, modern paleontologists have only the fossils found all over the earth to go on. Since bones fossilize readily, most of our first ideas of dinosaurs came from skeletons, sometimes only a few bones, from which to conceptualize what the size, shape, and gait of a living dinosaur might have been.

But in the past few decades new discoveries have amazingly altered our concept of what dinosaurs were. The study of Deinonychus, with its huge curved-clawed left hind foot, convinced scientists that they must have been fleet-footed raptors, able to dispatch their prey while hopping on one leg and slashing with the other, and therefore must have been, not slow-moving, cold-blooded reptiles, but warm-blooded super athletic hunters. Then, the discovery of fossilized and later mummified dinosaur skin, including the amazingly feathered Sinosauropteryx and the melanosomes (pigment bodies) for red and brown striping on its tail, radically changed our ideas of how these beasts actually looked. While much remains to be learned about the external appearance of dinosaurs, the combined sciences of anatomy, physiology, and biology together make for much more certainty in imagining what those creatures must have looked like back in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous eras.

Enter a new member of the dino team--the paleoartist.

"Scientific reality drives the visual image," explain Sylvia Czerkas, half of the famed Czerkas paleoart team. "It's very important for us to start with the science and then put into the image what we've learned."

Paleoartists use the fossil bones, and the plant studies, rock studies, and all the other bits of evidence discovered by the various scientists. Then they attempt to bridge the divide between "knowns" and the "unknowns."

Clearly, paleoartists have to be scientists themselves. Fossil bones show evidence of the long-gone muscles that moved them, suggesting the size and shape of the beast. Knowledge of basic anatomy, especially current related animals, help them sculpt, in their imaginations, how the creature was adapted to movement in its environment. Study of trackways, series of fossilized footprints add clues to the animal's morphology, and study of fossilized tissue, especially skin, give clues to how the animal's hide might have appeared. For example, some dinosaurs had scales, but they appeared to have not been overlapping like a snake's, but beaded, "semi-hexagonal" "a rosette-type pattern," not unlike parts of the modern-day Jackson's chameleon. Until more is discovered about the cells producing color, paleoartists can assume that dinosaur scales or primitive feathers were adapted to blend with their surroundings as do living animals today.

When Steven Spielbeg produced Jurassic Park back in 1993, his frightful raptor, Deinonychus, raced across the set clad in mottled scales, but with what we know today, if he were to film Jurassic Park IV, Denonychus would be a much different movie monster:

"At the time of Jurassic Park, feathers were unknown for any dinosaur. But now the evidence is undeniably clear that Deinonychus and many types of dinosaurs were feathered," says paleoartist Steven Czerkus.

The notable nonfiction author, Catherine Thimmesh's Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled: How do we know what dinosaurs really looked like? (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) gives middle readers who have moved beyond the "Yikes!" phase of fascination with the monster dinosaur an absorbing look into current dinosaur science and the work of the paleoartist in depicting its exciting findings. Filled with detailed schematic drawings and detailed full-page color paintings, Thimmesh's just-published book introduces upper elementary and middle school readers to the cutting-edge science which helps the artist to flesh out those creatures, inspiring kids who love science and love to draw an insight into how art and science can work together in the advancement of knowledge.  As the author says, "Still, somewhere out there, there is more evidence; there are more pieces of the puzzle--as yet undiscovered, as yet not fully understood.  Something unheard of today might become known tomorrow. Tomorrow's discoveries might upend what is known today." And the kid who reads this book today may be the one to make those discoveries.

Thimmesh provides a handy appendix, with thumbnail information about noted paleoartists, a bibliography, a very necessary glossary, and full index to fire the imagination of even the armchair paleoartist.

Get an Eyefull! TIME For Kids Dinosaurs 3D: An Incredible Journey Through Time by Dougal Dixon

Man (at least in his opposable thumb iteration) has been around for about 200,000 years, but for more than 135,000,000 years,  dinosaurs were the dominant species on earth, giving them the extreme endurance marathon record.

Dougal Dixon's new TIME For Kids Dinosaurs 3D: An Incredible Journey Through Time (Time for Kids, 2013), gives us the chance to see how some of these dominant dinosaur species might have looked in action.

Open this book, put on your 3-D glasses (two pairs for partner viewing are included), and delve into dinosaur lore, divided into main sections--long-necked plant eaters, armored plant eaters, two-footed plant eaters, and those frightfully toothy meat eaters. An additional chapter--"Digging Up the Past"--includes a description of the the process of fossilization that enabled humans to recreate the bone structure and visualize the whole beast, with biographical sections on "The Bone Hunters" as well as "Fossil Facts."

An appendix titled "What's Next" gives future dinosaur scientists a question-and-answer section, a glosssary of terms, a bibliography ("Find Out More") which includes books and web sites for further investigations by dino fans, a complete index, and a timeline ("Ages of the Dinosaur"), and a section on dinosaur extinction. Dougal Dixon dominates the dinosaur field for kids, and the dramatic 3-D illustrations offered in this sturdy, compact format are the perfect treat for the many elementary-aged readers who love, love, love dinosaur lore.

Time for Kids also offers a companion book, TIME for Kids Zoo 3D: An Incredible Animal Adventure.

Both Sides Now: Inside-Outside Dinosaurs by Roxie Munro

When dino-mania strikes a young reader, Roxie Munro's eye-popping new large-format picture book, Inside-Outside Dinosaurs, (Marshal Cavendish, 2009) has what it takes to satisfy that curiosity about these fascinating beasts.

To this task Munro brings a powerful palette. Her cover glows with cherry red and bright green accents, and her endpapers reverse the pattern, with green set off by just a touch of bright color.

Inside her format follows the design suggested by her title: the first double-page spread on each featured dinosaur shows a careful profile of the animal's skeleton, with the scientific name in cherry red block capitals at the upper left, and the meaning of the name in large black lower case letters in the opposite corner. The following full-color double-page spread shows the living animal, in the foreground, in its place in its environment, with landscape and other dinos of the same period in the background. For example, the ever-popular TRICEROTOPS is shown daintily nibbling on fern-like plants, while in the scene behind it a carnivorous Gorgosaurus chases a flock of Struthionmimuses and a flying Quetzalcoathus soars above the proto-palm trees dotted about the Cretacean landscape.

Many of the usual suspects of dinosaur books are here: Brachiosaurus, T. Rex, and Stegosaurus, for example, get the full treatment; but there are lesser-known examples as well: Parasaurolophus and Spinosaurus also have their moments in the sun. These feature pages have no further text, but Munro appends an especially useful section at the end which provides line drawings of each landscaped page, with the dinosaurs color-coded with their scientific names below, while the featured beast gets a detailed description of his habits, behavior, physiology, and geological period. The final section, "Find Out More About Dinosaurs," provides a short but fine selection of books for further reading and a list of six "Online Sources" which include the sites of the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History collections, as well as such interactive web sites as Zoom Dinosaurs and Dinosaur Dig.

Munro's Inside-Outside Dinosaurs is a knock-out of a book, one which will draw young dinophiles like a magnet and provide just the right amount of mind-expanding information for the youngest paleontology fan out there. This book should be the first stop before an actual trip to the natural history museum.