Right then – who remembers this one? Hopefully quite a few of you, as it was originally published in 1990 in hardback as part of the Young World series, with this paperback recycling appearing in 2000. It may well have been translated into other languages, too (Agata seems to remember a Polish edition). It’s just one of the hundreds and hundreds (probably) of kids’ books about dinosaurs churned out by well-known palaeontologist Michael Benton while on his coffee breaks in…
We are going to be talking about Dinocon, honest. But until then, here are some of the other illustrations from The Ultimate Book of Dinosaurs, first published in 2000 (this edition’s from 2002). In my last post, I looked at some (most, really) of Steve White’s contributions; this time, I’ll be featuring work from (deep breath) John Butler, Chris Christoforou, John Egan, Roger Goode, Philip Hood, Mark Iley, David McAllister, Martin McKenna, Michael Posen, and Tim White. Although because individual artists aren’t…
¡Hola! Here at Chasmosaurs we observe a Golden Rule when traveling abroad: “any opportunity must be taken to visit a park exhibiting model dinosaurs in the woods, so long as it is within a reasonable traveling distance” (M. Vincent et al, 2025). My corollary to that rule would be: if model dinosaurs are unavailable, a natural history museum will surely do. And so we find ourselves in Madrid, the sunny, colourful and vibrant capital of Spain, a perfect place to…
If one were to follow a single golden rule when traveling abroad, then it would surely be that any opportunity must be taken to visit a park exhibiting model dinosaurs in the woods, so long as it is within a reasonable traveling distance. Naturally, Agata and I followed this important principle when we recently stayed with her aunt and uncle in the city of Toruń, located in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (province) of Poland. In the same region of the country,…
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed a book from 1993’s Dinosaur Dynasty series (written by Dougal Dixon, published by Highlights for Children in the US and Watts in the UK) for the first time since 2013. Well, here’s another one! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a copy of A Closer Look for sale outside the US, so here’s Death and Discovery, which predictably is rather lighter on the life reconstructions. But there’s still good stuff to be had, although not courtesy…
Say “Ladybird dinosaur book” to someone, and they’ll very likely think of the book illustrated by Bernard Robinson that was reprinted a number of times and spanned the childhoods of multiple generations. (Well, at least two.) I reviewed it all the way back in 2011, so perhaps my review is now as nostalgic for some people as Ladybird books are for others. (Nah, just kidding. I’m not so deluded.) Robinson’s illustrations, while technically superb and highly memorable, were looking rather…
As the sort of unremarkable kids’ book that you might find buried in a stack at a charity shop, looking a little forlorn (but I found on eBay, of course), you might not expect too much from the Oxford First Book of Dinosaurs (part of a series that included further volumes on animals, art, maths, science, and space). As you’ve no doubt guessed, it uses a lot of art recycled from earlier books. Ah, but in this case, it’s a…
Once again: Marie Hubrecht. Are you tired of me talking about Marie Hubrecht yet? Because I’m not done. If you want more Hubrecht, check out my reviews of Verdwenen Werelden here, here and here, and our Verdwenen Werelden podcast episode here! This post is a direct companion to my last one, in which I detail the time I went to see the spectacular murals she made in the 1920s at the former Girls’ Lyceum in Amsterdam. These paintings have been…
Regular readers (we have some, right?) will be aware that our sole criterion for a book’s inclusion in Vintage (=Old) Dinosaur Art is that it be 20 years old. Consequently, books from the early 2000s have now entered our purview. It was a time when, in the wake of Walking With Dinosaurs, publishers demanded increasing numbers of CG creations in lieu of more traditional illustrations and model photography. Dorling Kindersley (aka DK) very much followed this trend, inserting very dodgy…
The Magic School Bus franchise was a big deal at exactly the right sort of time for it to have impacted my childhood, but it completely passed me by – probably because I’m British, and it wasn’t quite as well known here. I do have vague memories of a fantastical yellow bus (which was a bit of an alien concept – the yellow school bus, that is) that could fly through space and whatnot, but that’s about it. A shame,…
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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.