Scholastic Dinosaur A To Z
Grade 4-8-An attractive and useful resource. Introductory essays cover topics such as how dinosaurs are named and grouped. The heart of the book is the alphabetical list of more than 700 entries, providing pronunciation, name derivation, classification, size, era, geographical location, and diet for each species. Brief paragraphs offer further descriptions, behaviors, and interesting facts. Only dinosaursare covered, with no flying reptiles or ichthyosaurs to confuse things. Discoveries, such as Nigersaurus from 1999, are included, and several more recent finds are grouped at the end. See references lead readers from common names to the correct entry, so researchers looking for Brontosaurus are neatly guided to Apatosaurus. Most of the dinosaurs are accompanied by small illustrations, either of the animal or its fossil, and numerous striking full-page paintings show these creatures in their habitats, often in active poses that grab the eye. This encyclopedia fills a gap between simpler volumes, such as Jim Pipe's Dinosaurs A to Z (Copper Beech, 2003) and Rupert Matthews's Dinosaurs A-Z (Blackbirch, 2002), and ones with broader scope like Paul Barrett's National Geographic Dinosaurs (National Geographic, 2001) and David Burnie's The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia (Kingfisher, 2001). The concise entries, dictionary organization, and comprehensive coverage make this an excellent choice for circulating and reference shelves.Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, ORCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.