DINOSAURS

Meet a selection of the intriguing lizards that once walked the Earth in this introductory primer for preschool paleontologists.

Another in the series of Hello, World! science-for-toddlers books, this volume presents, in very simple form, a few basic concepts about the study of dinosaurs via their fossilized remains. The first four pages introduce the idea that scientists find the bones of long-gone dinosaurs in the ground, reassemble them, and display the completed skeletons in museums. A white female paleontologist and a brown-skinned male colleague use an assortment of simple tools to extract bones from layers of earth and sediment. A roundup of a fair sampling of dinos, presented in a series of informative, easily digested two-page spreads, fills out the balance of the book. The artwork features a broad palette of bright colors, but the blocky and crudely representational figures, though easily read, have an almost South Park quality. The dinosaurs depicted have goofy, nonthreatening smiles and awkward, oddly jointed limbs, so the scenes lack the primordial majesty that a more lifelike rendering would convey. In all, the book presents eight different dinosaurs and a few fun facts about each, covering eating habits (plants? meat?), armor, teeth, height, etc.

A decent conversation starter for the youngest dinosaur enthusiasts.