Prehistoric Life (DK Visual Dictionaries)
Grade 6 Up-Like other entries in the series, this book is best used as a collection of images pertaining to the subject. It opens with a spiraling time line, and proceeds forward from the Earth's primordial juices up through the arrival of the primates. Each type of creature or plant is introduced with plenty of illustrations, including diagrams and photographs of skeletons and 3-D models. All of the pictures are copiously captioned with scientific terminology. But while it looks great to have a little arrow pointing at a Notoungulate's naris, what good is it if readers have no idea what the creature is, or why it's important that its nose hole is noted? The book is full of identifications-what it lacks are explanations. The text concerns itself mainly with describing the changes in life forms over the various epochs and eras, stating when elephants developed trunks, but not why. It rarely describes the illustrations. The section on plant reproduction is definitely high-school level and above. In fact, this volume might be most useful as a picture-book accompaniment to a college-level course on the history of life, providing colorful visuals of topics that a good paleo/biology textbook might clarify.Cathryn A. Camper, Minneapolis Public LibraryCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.