Dinosaurs!

by Nick Forshaw, Andy Forshaw (Illustrator)

Overview

Dig deep into the fascinating world of dinosaurs with the first book in the What on Earth? Explorer series, complete with a six-foot-long fold-out timeline. 

Join explorer Agent Eagle as he explores these amazing creatures - from the earliest dinosaur fossil discoveries, to the relationship between birds and dinosaurs. Discover the history of the dinosaur, in each major era, emphasizing how dinosaur bodies and diets adapted over time. Learn about the best places to find fossils, who are the great dinosaur explorers and scientists, and ultimately, what killed off the dinosaurs. 

A quiz, name game, and glossary lead you to the book’s biggest feature – a fold-out timeline featuring 100 of the most incredible dinosaurs that ever lived – from their first appearance 230 million years ago, to their current living descendants. Full of facts and bursting with illustrations, Explorer: Dinosaurs! Is a unique book for any dinosaur buff.

Explorer: Dinosaurs! won a Parents' Choice Silver Honor Award and was a finalist in the 2018 International Book Awards Young Adult Non-Fiction category.

Also in the Explorer series: Bugs!, Mammals!, and Plants!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780995577053
Publisher:	What on Earth Publishing
Publication date:	04/16/2018
Series:	Explorer , #2
Pages:	46
Product dimensions:	9.60(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	7 - 11 Years

About the Author

Andy Forshaw graduated with a BA in graphic design and illustration from London’s Central St. Martins College. In 2010, Andy and Christopher teamed up to found What on Earth Publishing with a view to establishing new ways of making big history accessible to all ages. Andy has since individually created more than 5,000 illustrations that are featured in the range of What on Earth? Timelines. When not illustrating, Andy can be found exploring the countryside on his bike.

Nick Forshaw is an author and editor based in Berlin. He has written a history of the evolution of the dinosaurs, explored the way insects, arachnids and other creepy crawlies first developed and taken a close look at the way plants thrive on our green planet. His most recent investigation examines all the different species of mammal that have evolved on planet Earth. You can read all about his extraordinary discoveries in the What On Earth? Explorer Journal series. He works closely with a team of editors and researchers at What On Earth? HQ, to produce beautifully illustrated and wonderfully informative books.

Editorial Reviews

From a review of Bugs!: “It simply sings to info-philes and visual learners alike. With parallel timelines for all continents, developments on land, sky and sea, more than a thousand illustrations, it is a superlative mastery of design and research, a treat to eye and brain alike.”

“In this engaging launch to a series of books with fold-out timelines, Eric Eagle, senior librarian of the Eagle-Eyed Explorer Club, is tasked with taking an expedition into prehistory to explore and document dinosaur life. Forshaw ... works in an accessible style that blends naturalistic and cartoony details … The six-foot-long timeline chronicles dinosaur life from the Triassic Period through our current Cenozoic Era. A strong choice for visual learners and information-seekers.” — Publishers Weekly

"An exciting purchase for libraries looking for high-interest nonfiction that covers both dinosaurs and career interests." —School Library Journal

"An excellent resource for dino-dedicated kids, this new title in What on Earth Publishing's fold-out timeline series explores the history of dinosaurs, from their emergence in the Triassic period 240 million years ago through their eventual extinction … A worthwhile, informative, and fun resource for young students and anyone intrigued by these mind-boggling creatures that once roamed this planet." —Parent’s Choice Awards Silver Honor

From the Publisher

"An excellent resource for dino-dedicated kids, this new title in What on Earth Publishing's fold-out timeline series explores the history of dinosaurs, from their emergence in the Triassic period 240 million years ago through their eventual extinction...A worthwhile, informative, and fun resource for young students and anyone intrigued by these mind-boggling creatures that once roamed this planet."

Silver Honor - Parent's Choice Awards

"An exciting purchase for libraries looking for high-interest nonfiction that covers both dinosaurs and career interests."

Dinosaurs! was reviewed in May's edition of School Libary Journal

"This is a great book and it would make a great birthday or Christmas gift and it would be great as a book to use in schools when covering dinosaurs."

The Inspirational Edit

This is a great book and it would make a great birthday or Christmas gift and it would be great as a book to use in schools when covering Dinosaurs.

TheInspirationalEdit.com - Angela Milnes

"Children LOVE the ‘What on Earth?’ format."

Teachers' Book Awards Review

It simply sings to info-philes and visual learners alike. With parallel timelines for all continents, developments on land, sky and sea, more than a thousand illustrations, it is a superlative mastery of design and research, a treat to eye and brain alike.

JUNO Magazine

"An exciting purchase for libraries looking for high-interest nonfiction that covers both dinosaurs and career interests."

School Libary Journal

"Epic - this is history let out of a box"

Daily Telegraph

2018-02-13

An overview of the dino clan, featuring a populous fold-out timeline of the Mesozoic Era.

The book opens with a perfunctory setup in which Eric Eagle, intrepid librarian, is sent back in time to "file a report on the entire history of the dinosaurs." Following this, a set of sober-sided disquisitions survey the history of dino-discovery, then dinosaur hip bones, lives, diversity of forms, adaptations, extinction, and modern successors. Forshaw's painted group and individual portraits are all likewise staid (some predators do at least have bloodless bits of prey hanging from their mouths), but there are a lot of dinosaurs on view, systematically identified and dated. There is also a portrait gallery of paleontologists, all (like "Agent Eagle") white but two of whom are living women. The accordion-folded timeline, which is one-sided and perforated for easy removal, begins with the Triassic Period, ends in a truncated view of the Cenozoic (with a chicken), and is thick with both colorfully patterned creatures and short, descriptive annotations for each. Three sets of easy quizzes allow young fans to see how much of the "reports" they have retained. Bugs!, also by the same authorial team but with illustrations by William Exley, opens with a virtually identical setup and proceeds to cover the "bug" world in similar fashion.

Serviceable, if a bit dry. (Nonfiction. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews