Gigantic!: How Big Were the Dinosaurs? - Hardcover

O'Brien, Patrick

4

19 ratings by Goodreads

9780805057386: Gigantic!: How Big Were the Dinosaurs?

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805057382 ISBN 13: 9780805057386

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 1999

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By studying the dinosaur bones discovered over the last two hundred years, scientists have an idea of how big some of the dinosaurs were. Now dinosaur fans of all ages can see for themselves exactly what "big" means. Vivid and exciting, Gigantic! puts some of children's favorite dinosaurs head-to-head with monster trucks, cherry pickers, and tanks.

As a child, Patrick O'Brien was fascinated by the illustrations of prehistoric animals in children's books. This lifelong fascination has grown as he continues to study and paint these giants of the past. In this book, accessible to even the youngest picture-book readers, his realistic, highly detailed illustrations easily convey size, and provide a fascinating study of the giants who once ruled the earth.

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About the Author:

Patrick O' Brien has illustrated several children's books, including A Wasp Is Not a Bee, Teddy Roosevelt's Elk, and Bottoms Up. His work has also appeared on posters, videotape boxes, and even refrigerator magnets. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 3-Facts are great but what draws many kids to dinosaurs is their enormous size-bodies that were 4 stories tall or weighed as much as 15 elephants. O'Brien focuses on the awe-inspiring dimensions of these prehistoric beasts, and uses his well-articulated paintings to compare dinos to familiar (and often human-made) objects. The huge flying Quetzalcoatlus, which looks like a pterosaur on steroids, soars ahead of a biplane, while Phobosuchus, a giant crocodile, is much longer than the fire engine next to it. Triceratops, whose "massive head was a dangerous weapon," is shown facing down a mounted knight in full armor, while Tyrannosaurus rex leers at an Elizabethan monarch sitting on a throne. The text is very brief; notes at the end fill in more information about the sizes of the creatures. O'Brien also explains that not all of these beasts are dinosaurs; for example, the giant armored Dinichthys is really a prehistoric fish. The simplicity of the text and the clarity of these examples, one per double-page spread, will make this book popular with even the youngest dinosaur fans. Like David Peters's Giants of Land, Sea and Air-Past and Present (Knopf, 1986), it succeeds in conveying a sense of size across many millennia.
Cathryn A. Camper, Minneapolis Public Library
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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