FROM OUR EDITORS

Dinosaurs went extinct more than 60 million years ago, but these prehistoric creatures still ensnare our attention. In Dinosaurs: Encyclopedia Prehistorica, two award-winning pop-up artists combine their skills to present ravishing raptors and heavy, long-necked giants in all their majesty and strangeness. Each of the book's multilayered spreads feature one spectacular, large pop-up and several booklets of smaller pop-ups and text.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Open this book and a massive T. rex springs out, flashing a startling jawful of jagged teeth. Turn the next spread and a ravishing raptor unfurls and appears to fly off the edge of the page. Inside the amazing Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs are "shield bearers" in full-body armor, creatures with frilly headgear, and weighty, long-necked giants. There are even amusing tidbits on the history of paleontology itself — like a pop-up version of a Victorian New Year's dinner in the belly of a dinosaur model, or a pair of scientists locked in a literal tug-of-war over bones.

Full of fascinating facts and lighthearted good humor, this breathtaking book offers up-to-the-minute information on more than fifty dinosaur species. With each of six spreads featuring one spectacular, large pop-up as well as booklets of smaller pop-ups and text, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs is a magnificent display of paper engineering and creativity-an astonishing book that will be read, admired, and treasured forever.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Paper engineers Sabuda (Winter's Tale, reviewed above) and Reinhart, who teamed up for The Movable Mother Goose, have a go at dinosaurs in this playful and edifying pop-up. It can be tough to concentrate on the Mesozoic Era, or on the skeletal differences between saurischians and ornithischians, with black-and-green velociraptors jumping from page gutters, a blue-green brachiosaurus towering overhead or pachycepalosaurs ("the original headbangers," with extra-bony skulls) lurking behind gatefolds. The coauthors imagine the dinosaurs as multicolored creatures, and their gecko-to-iguana-size models come in a rainbow of sky blues, rusty reddish browns, canary yellows and speckled foresty greens. In one alarming spread, an iron-red Tyrannosaurus rex with yellow teeth reaches out to nip the unsuspecting reader on the nose; this spread's lift-the-flap extras, hard to reach with T. rex's jaws in the way, include an ochre-yellow allosaurus ripping a bloody hunk of flesh from an unfortunate green herbivore. Yet for all these bells and whistles, the coauthors balance the lively 3D material with sidebars on extinction, paleontologists' discoveries (and mistakes) and practical details (stegosaurus's armor plates were "bigger than cafeteria trays"; diplodocus was "as long as two school buses"). With so many layers and moving paper parts-watercolored on all sides-readers may begin to feel like paleontologists unearthing fossils. Dino fans won't be disappointed. Ages 5-up. (Aug.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.