Best adapted for browsing but with some nutritious bits for students of paleontology or animal evolution in general.
A portrait gallery of extinct creatures, “scary, attractive, or a little bit bizarre to our eyes,” posed with modern relatives.
García Mora goes for outsized examples, from the titular T. Rex—looking positively dapper in a coat of neatly combed feathers as it towers over a pair of oblivious pullets—and the ancestral dragonfly Meganeura, “large as a seagull,” to giant sloths and armadillos. Rendered in muted, greenish-gold tones, the figures look properly massive but are actually rather small on the page, as plenty of space has been left for early cousin creatures, for scale-capturing views of modern descendants and silhouettes of human children, for close-ups of teeth, feet, or other physical features to show changes over time, and for quick but carefully accurate descriptive notes in tiny type. The gallery isn’t arranged in any particular order, coming to an abrupt end with group portraits of early sharks and other fish, but beyond the eye candy, it does offer examples of both adaptive radiation (species diverging into other species) and evolutionary convergence (different species acquiring similar characteristics) to enrich the basic notion of evolution as an ongoing process. There is no backmatter, making this a bit problematic as a nonfiction resource.
Best adapted for browsing but with some nutritious bits for students of paleontology or animal evolution in general. (Informational picture book. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-88-544-1197-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: White Star
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
“In 1875 there were perhaps fifty million of them. Just twenty-five years later nearly every one of them was gone.” The author of many nonfiction books for young people (Bridges; Truck; Giants of the Highways, etc.) tells the story of the American bison, from prehistory, when Bison latifrons walked North America along with the dinosaurs, to the recent past when the Sioux and other plains Indians hunted the familiar bison. Robbins uses historic photographs, etchings, and paintings to show their sad history. To the Native Americans of the plains, the buffalo was central to their way of life. Arriving Europeans, however, hunted for sport, slaughtering thousands for their hides, or to clear the land for the railroad, or farmers. One telling photo shows a man atop a mountain of buffalo skulls. At the very last moment, enough individuals “came to their senses,” and worked to protect the remaining few. Thanks to their efforts, this animal is no longer endangered, but the author sounds a somber note as he concludes: “the millions are gone, and they will never come back.” A familiar story, well-told, and enhanced by the many well-chosen period photographs. (photo credits) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83025-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Here is an adventure in a unique setting. The lively text and lovely watercolors document three and a half months of a summer the artist and author spent at the South Pole, as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Hooper describes everyday life aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, a sturdy orange icebreaker that scientists use to travel between the islands to study the wide variety of animals who come each year to breed and raise their young. An assortment of penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels, huge skuas, and leopard seals hold center stage. Scientists are less important than the serious business of successfully raising young in the short summer season. The author captures the drama of the ice-cold ocean, alive with life: “Swarms of barrel-shaped blue-tinged salps, stuck together in floating chains. Minute creatures with red eyes. Sliding through the water in a curving path like a ribbon.” The artist provides striking paintings of the landscape and the animals in soft washy colors, and quick pencil sketches. The ice is lemon gold with mauve shadows, and the sea a silver gray in the 24-hour day. Animals are expressive and individual. The krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that form the backbone of the ocean food chain, appear in luminous glory. The author concludes with a page on global warming, a map of the islands visited, and an index. From cover to cover a personal and informative journey. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7188-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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