BOOK REVIEW: Ankylosaur Attack and Pterosaur Trouble

In a previous post today, I shared a new book that is described as instilling in the reader a “childlike sense of wonder” about dinosaurs. While My Beloved Brontosaurus is for older readers, there is a new series of children’s books about those ancient creatures. Written by Daniel Loxton (Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be) and illustrated by Loxton and W.W. Smith, the Tales of Prehistoric Life series is sure to delight young dinosaur fans and, a more hopeful goal, to create new ones. The first in the series, Ankylosaur Attack (Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press, 2011, 32 pp.), follows an Ankylosaurus (the iconic “armored” dinosaur of North America) one morning as he searches for food in his habitat, experiences a grumpy older individual of his own species, watches pterosaurs in the sky, and defends himself – with a little help – against a fierce Tyrannosaurus rex.

The narrative is simple, yet through it comes out a lot of what it must have been like to live millions of years ago. On the final page, Loxton gives extra information about the dinosaur species highlighted in the story. Subtle but right there at the beginning just might be the most important sentence in the book: “It was a morning long, long ago – millions of years before humans walked the Earth.” The illustrations in the book are beautiful, looking almost like photographs. Of course, they are not, since Loxton tells us this story is happening long before humans appeared on Earth. They are digital illustrations superimposed on landscape photography.

Photo-realistic images perhaps serve to reinforce to readers that these animals did in fact exist and live on our planet. They are not fictional and simply an artist’s imagination, although some guess work has to be made to flesh out dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs were real, and the illustrations show kids what paleontologists thought they looked like and how they behaved. Loxton had expert advice from paleontologists Kenneth Carpenter and Donald Prothero, so the information is accurate and up-to-date.

The second in the Tales of Prehistoric Life series was just published. Pterosaur Trouble (Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press, 2013, 32 pp.) likewise follows an individual animal.

This time, it is not a dinosaur, but another critter from the Mesozoic Era, Quetzalcoatlus. This is another “day in the life” story, also featuring Triceratops and a pack of Saurornitholestes hell bent on having some pterosaur meat for breakfast.

Loxton got paleontologist Darren Naish, an authority on pterosaur fossils, to provide advice for Pterosaur Trouble. And the book includes the same, if not better, digital illustrations as Ankylosaur Attack. I certainly hope Loxton and his publisher continue this series. I came to be interested in Darwin, evolution, and the history of science through a love of paleontology (sparked by Jurassic Park). Keeping my young son engaged in thinking about the history of life on earth not only occurs through visiting museums, providing him with scientifically-accurate dinosaur toys, and watching a variety of science programming online, but through reading books. And anyone familiar with children’s books about dinosaurs knows, some shine and others lack with regard to keeping up to date with dinosaur paleontology. The Tales of Prehistoric Life series shines brightly. All images, except the one below, are from Kids Can Press website.