If there’s one thing children love, it’s asking questions. And if there’s one topic that inspires more questions than any other, it’s probably dinosaurs! Needless to say, publishers have long since learned that the Question and Answer format makes for a quick, easy way to stock store shelves with titles that seek to provide those curious kids with the answers they so desperately seek. Does this one accomplish that lofty goal? Or at least provide us with some pretty pictures…
Last time in Vintage Dinosaur Gaming, we met the precocious Parasaurolophus Rolph and began a quest to save Paleo Island from a monstrous T.rex. After a tour through the Triassic section of the island, we took a ride on our pterosaur pal Pterrance and landed in the Jurassic section. This screen represents the early Jurassic, as indicated by the Dilophosaurus skulking about in the distance. Besides the grass-like ground cover, the flora has an appropriately Jurassic flair and shows an attention…
If you’re anything like me, you spent a lot of your childhood playing educational video games. I was the perfect age for the cavalcade of edutainment titles that flooded shelves in the early 2000s and none captured my attention quite like those that prominently featured dinosaurs. Endless hours of my youth were spent skulking in the needlessly eerie museum halls of DK’s Eyewitness: Dinosaur Hunter, unleashing ravenous Allosaurus into the food courts in the quasi-educational management sim Zoo Tycoon’s Dino…
For many of us, an interest in dinosaurs goes hand in hand with a general fascination with all things monstrous. This association of imagined creatures with the real monsters of the past is such a strong one that many books focused on the former can’t help but spend a bit of time on the latter. Creepy Creatures, published in 1982, is one such book. Written and illustrated entirely by Dan Nevins, this book profiles a menagerie of creatures hailing from…
I was only a year old when BBC’s landmark series Walking with Dinosaurs first aired, but I have to imagine watching it in 1999 must have felt similar to the way I felt watching Prehistoric Planet this week. Not since then has the age of dinosaurs ever been portrayed so believably. For the first time in a big-budget media project we’re getting depictions of Mesozoic life that isn’t plagued by concessions and strange design choices. Feathers are commonplace. Multi-ton behemoths…
Who remembers Zoobooks? Beginning in 1980, the richly illustrated and highly authoritative Zoobooks series made a name for itself as some of the very best educational books in the world of children’s publishing. Zoobooks were primarily distributed as mail-in magazines and hardback library copies, though I’ve also seen hardbacks sold at zoo gift shops. Most issues, as you’d expect, covered modern animals in great detail and the one devoted to dinosaurs is no different. Originally published in 1985, it was…
There’s a new face on the blog! Sophie has been getting some attention on Twitter with, among other things, her threads on vintage dinosaur books. Of course, it was a matter of time before she found her way here. Please welcome Sophie and come say hi in the comments! – Niels Hi there, everyone! I’m Sophie, you might know me from my Twitter where I’ve made a name for myself with my enormous threads on old dinosaur art, regular commentary…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.