First the book starts by saying how drawing dinosaurs takes a lot of guesswork and to know for sure what a dinosaur looks like we would need a time-machine. Second they are talking about Iguanodons and how early artists modeled them and how they only had a few bones of the dinosaur and the theory that dinosaurs were cold-blooded creatures. Then they are talking about that the dinosaur could move fast and they had fossilized foot prints and that they would have to be warm-blooded animals and that their tails indeed didn't drag. Next they were conversing about how the bones give the overall dimensions of the dinosaur and how artist used to have only about a handful of bones and now there are many more. They now start talking about how the expression of a dinosaur is from the shape of the skull and that the dinos don't have muscles in their face so they couldn't make different expressions with their face. Then they were talking about the first dino skin found and that it was scaly and that they found a fossilized feather and that some dinosaurs where indeed feathered. Finally they where talking about how coloring dinosaurs is a real problem.
I gave this book a 2 star rating because I don't like non-fiction books very much. This book was okay but not something I would want to read. I prefer fiction because it is more interesting than real life. I would probably have liked this book more if it taught about dinosaurs but was a fantasy story. That would have made it more exciting and would probably draw me in more. Obviously this book isn't popular at all because no one has reviewed it but me. Also non-fiction books put me in a bad mood this was going to be a 2.5 star but not any more. ( )

I feel this book only deserves two stars, because it wasn't very interesting. The book does a good job at describing the evolution of dinosaurs, but does not make it fun to read. I also think that the book is to long and is just boring. A book about any type of animal, should be able to give short details and good facts about it. I am sure this is a super book for people that are into dinosaurs, but not for me. There for I am only giving this book two stars.

This Dinosaur book is about the evolution of dinosaurs. The author writes about some of the first painters that tried to figure out what dinosaurs looked like, by looking at single fossil pieces. One of these painters was Benjamin Waterhouse. He created the first life-sized dinosaurs and unveiled them in the 1850s. They were unlike anything ever seen before. But first to even give artists an idea of what dinosaurs really looked like, there had to be Paleontologists to find the fossils. So in 1964 Paleontologist John Ostorm discovered the first specimen of 'Deinonychus'.(a type of dinosaur) So as you can see it must have taken a lot of work to figure out what dinosaurs really looked like. ( )

a very detailed discussion of dinosaurs and what we know about know about them.
3 books

This is a wonderful book to use when teaching a science unit on dinosaurs. This book would fascinate the children, because it teaches them how we can know what dinosaurs looked like. The language used in the book may need to be scaffolded by pre-teaching vocabulary. This book would be better geared towards older elementary students. This book did a wonderful job tying art and science together. ( )

I like this informational text for many reasons, but the main reason would definitely have to be the fact that Catherine really makes you think about how we know what dinosaurs really looked like. She does this simply two different ways. First, she asks this question on the cover page of the book and then again on the first page. Then she states that no one has ever seen a real life dinosaur because, “After all, they lived more than sixty-five million years ago. Long, long before people were around.” This gives the reader an idea of how long ago they were actually living and breathing creatures while pointing out that we were not there. Another reason that I enjoyed this book was the illustrations; she used many illustrations and photographs from different sources. Instead of just providing the name of the source, she gave a description of what the picture was of and why the artist chose certain colors and textures for the creatures. This gives the reader different theories that scientists have developed over the years based on the bones and fossils discovered over time. The last big reason I liked this book was her use of textual citations of different scientists who have the credentials to give expert opinions of what dinosaurs really looked like and how they come to determine those opinions. This allows the reader to trust that the information being provided before them in this book is factual, and that even though this is a fun read, they are learning many interesting facts that they can share with their friends and family. I know I will be sharing this with my future students. Nevertheless, the big theme of this book is to share information and inform the reader that even though we have scientific evidence as to determine what dinosaurs looked like, we will never really know unless we can go back in time. ( )