6 Dinosaur Books
"It was dinosaur time."
This week, (by popular demand) Jon & Mac recommend six dinosaur books, including a paean to paleontology, a field guid by an unexpected picture book duo, and a comic classic with a heartbreaking last page.
Dinosaur Valley by Mitsuhiro Kurokawa
In Dinosaur Valley, you’ll find a lot of the famous dinosaurs doing their thing — roaring, fighting, chomping. But the book employs a clever device: It follows a family of Orodromeus, nobody’s favorite dinosaur. (Orodromeus fans, see you in the comments). A mother Orodromeus shepherds her hatchlings through the prehistoric world. Given that everybody wants to eat them, our main characters mostly hide and watch:
There’s a remarkable sequence near the end. First, a spread that shows the babies heading off to fend for themselves: “She taught them which dinosaurs were friendly and how to flee from those who weren’t. When they were old enough, the young dinosaurs left their mother to go off into the valley on their own.”
Turn the page, and there is a stunning two page wordless spread of a pterosaur gliding over the valley. And then: the same valley at night, viewed from the ground, millions of years later. The dinosaurs are long gone. There’s a huge triceratops skull in the foreground. It’s a home for rats.
—MAC