| I really liked the
picture of an ornithomimid on the book’s front cover. The
ornithomimid, or “bird mimic” dinosaur, is running away.
It made me wonder who or what could be chasing it. The topic of
dinosaurs is totally interesting. I had no idea so many dinosaur
fossils have been found in our country; that’s cool. I really
enjoyed the pictures of all the dinosaurs. What made reading the
text even better, were the little boxes of dinosaur trivia on almost
every other page.
I learned that ceratopians never ran out of sharp teeth. Their
jaws held columns of teeth with at least three in each one and when
one of their teeth fell out after eating lots of plants another
tooth would just replace it. I also learned that when an armoured
dinosaur named Euoplocephalus was attacked, it would close its armoured
eyelids and use its tail to defend itself. Its tail had a 30 kilogram
bony club on it, which it used as a weapon.
When reading about dinosaurs, however, it’s difficult trying
to pronounce dinosaur names like Brachylophosaurus or Struthiomimus—too
bad they couldn’t have simple names like Jimmyosaurus or Connorosaurus.
I was kind of disappointed to find that so far no dinosaur bones
have been found in Ontario—sorry Manitoba, same for you.
The book was a fun and interesting read—I read it in one day.
The book scores a 9 out of 10. The one word I would use to describe
the book is fabulous.
(Originally published
in the Mar/Apr 2005 issue of YES Mag.)
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