The Kingfisher First Dinosaur Picture Atlas: A Review
The atlas is one of the many ways dinosaur books have been organised, going from continent to continent and highlighting the genera and fossil find of each of them. To my knowledge, it became common in the 80's and 90's during the height of the Dinosaur Renaissance and into the 21st century, as new discoveries were being made and revaluated in the southern hemisphere and Asia that expanded views in palaeontological beyond just North America and Europe (although funding for research is still confined to those two, because imperialism), and into the 2000's. Today we will look at one such example, 2007's The Kingfisher First Dinosaur Picture Atlas, written by nature writer David Burnie, who usually writes about extant life, most prominently for the Eyewitness series, and published by Kingfisher, a pretty big purveyor of books like these. The book's art meanwhile is by Anthony Lewis, who has done more in a series of similar childrens' atlases for Kingfisher.
I remember lovingly reading the book itself in (one of) my middle school libraries, as with many other books about the prehistoric subject. It was only of late seeing it in my local public library that the memories came back, from headbutting carnotaurus to a sunbathing spinosaur. Let's dive into what made it worth remembering, shall we?
Worth noting the photographs in this review come from a new edition from more recently (2019). This one is literally the same in everything, although its name is shortened to "First Dinosaur Picture Atlas"; why they did it I'm not sure, though I suspect its to save on printing, or because it's part of a trend of simplification in literature. While I don't really care either way, I do feel that having the Kingfisher in gives it more of a distinct identity thanks to revealing its publisher, and the latter is rather generic.
The book begin with this world map introducing the basics of the book, getting a glimpse of the dinosaurs of the book. We are also introduced to the book's mascot here, a cartoon rex who crops up in insets on the map pages.
Afterwards, it kicks off proper with my homenation of Canada (along with Alaska). Naturally, almost everything is from Campanian Alberta.
In both cases so far, we see one of the book's unintentional flaws: to squeeze multiple dinosaurs from the same formation, dinosaurs are placed far from where they or any other dinosaur were: you won't find any dinosaurs recovered in northern Manitoba, which is all Palaeozoic and earlier rocks, and as seen on the last spread, definitely none in Northern Ontario. Ultimately its a complaint on the small and pedantic side, but it's still there.
After each map comes palaeoart of dinosaurs in their time with some insets highlighting certain others. The first is of scaley, pronated-handed raptors doing what they do best: attacking a big ornithopod, in this case Lambeosaurus (a magnicristatus from the crest). The nekkidness would be just forgivable for the mid-2000's, but notice the blue Chirostenotes in the inset that does have feathers however basic, so its an inconsistent and frustrating oversight.
We then go south of the border to the US, to have a spread on Maiasaura, with the other centred on Triceratops with insets for other dinosaurs of the region. All of them seem to have come from the 90's, just like most of the rest last spread, to mixed results to me, though with exception of the nekkid raptors, none truly anger me.
...Wait a minute. Is what is clearly a Struthiomimus or whathaveyou labelled Scutellosaurus!? LIKE THE LITTLE ARMOURED DINO THAT LIVED WITH DILOP- HOW DO YOU SCREW THAT UP!? THAT'S ON YOU PUBLISHERS
Erm, sorry about that.
Next we go south of the equator to South America, where Argentina's dinosaurs dominate. Good as time as any to mention a lot of the other countries have gotten their own dinosaurs in the decade 1/2 between editions, such as Chile (Chilesaurus), Venezuela (Tachiraptor and Laquintasaura), and Ecuador (Yamanasaurus). Would have given diversity to the map at least.
First comes a duo of Herrerasaurus chasing some poor Eoraptor. Note the obvious duplicate poses of them, but that's fine to me.
Europe is next. Considering for the longest time it was the epicentre of palaeontology, I'd expect more dinosaurs, and the inclusion of Hateg in the east, but neither are here. Granted, I suppose that more dinosaurs would clutter the map, and it is for younger readers, but still.
Anyways, Europe, where the first spread is one dedicated to the Iguanodon of Bernissart and the other dominated by Baryonyx, as usual fishing.
The Baryonyx itself is pretty good, as are the Iguanodon for the time - although do note the latter's weird slit eyes, which are what you'd expect from stereotypical raptors, and only just seem to be there to make it look "keweler" to readers. I do admit it does give it a more distinct feel the other art of it which have the usual round pupils.
Africa is the next section.
The first spread is about the famous Tendaguru, with a blue Kentrosaurus fighting against.... Ceratosaurus? You now, the theropod famous for the head horns, and not what's clearly Allosaurus? It's quite an egregious mistake, given that you can clearly see the horned ceratosaurus twice on literally the opposite page.
Still, I do like the way its laid out at least.
The other spread is a a sun bathing Spinosaurus. It's one of the images that were the first to rise up in my memory, and though it's unlikely that it actually used the sail primarily for thermoregulation, and Spino does not look like this anymore, I like this quite a bit.
Also, notice the Afrovenator oddly trying to be a spinosaurid itself.
It has a whopping three full spreads, so what a treat.
First up is Saurolophus, here depicted with the resonating pouches once proposed to it, I've seen in quite a few nonfiction from the 90's and 2000's, most notably the classic Zoobooks, though I am not sure it is backed up by the surface of the actual dinosaur's skulls.
I like this spread nevertheless, thanks to the striking reds for the Saurolophus and the ominously looming Tarbosaurus in the trees.
Next spread's on the feathered theropods of Liaoning, with Caudipteryx as the. I especially like the sequence in the right corner: depicting how the first dinosaur feathers more or less evolved (in a simplified way, mind you). It is still the first to come to mind when it comes to picturing feather evolution. However, the book gets the oviraptorid very wrong. It should a more deep head typical of other oviraptorids (try this link for a example), and more broadly, much more birdlike plumage actually seen in the top right. Thew weird half-done wings on the other dinosaurs are also offputting to me.
The book's final map is on Australasia. There's no habitat art afterwards, unlike the rest of the sections. Shame, since Dinosaur Cove and the Hanson Formation were well known even at the time, and we could easily have seen one with Cryolophosaurus (which did appear in the world map seen at the start) or Leaellynasaura, unless budget constraints are at fault.
And if your wondering why Ankylosaurus is in New Zealand, is that there are some very fragmentary remains of a "nodosaur" (more likely an Parankylosaur) known from the Mangahouanga site (remember them?), though it was certainly not an ankylosaurid proper.
Lewis' art is of a more cartoony style then the norm, but with plenty of rough texture. I admit I'm mixed on it: part of me thinks its a bit ugly and unpleasant to look at, not to mention many get rendered as blobby straight out of Burian's time of the mid-20th, with all the accuracies it implies, from pronated hands and too upright stances on theropods and ornithopods and hands without the nails on the hadrosaurs; the ones that aren't just add to the problem by making them more conspicuous. Another says it's unique in the sea of realistic art styles, CG abominations, or overly cartoonish illustrations nowadays and then; maybe that's why it stuck in my mind versus other books.
There is also the issue of inconsistent designs: the designs on the spreads aren't always the same as those on the maps, which you notice the more you read it.
On a slightly more positive note, I do like many of the colour schemes of the dinosaurs in the book, which are bright and bold, which is unsuprising when it's meant for younger readers.
I also do like how the atlas sticks to dinosaurs and only dinosaurs, never tacking on pterosaurs or marine reptiles to clutter the book, sometging other books like this have done.
The information in the book consists of very short paragraphs. The phrasing is sometimes off though, especially upon further reads. Just to give one example, Giganotosaurus is said in the inset to live 100 million years after Eoraptor and Hererrasaurus - except giga evolved after the former mark, and 100 million years after the latter would be 130 mya - not when it lived at all.
The 2019 reprint doesn't update anything save the covers and adds a bookmark, so you have very inaccurate designs as we have seen, but also. This is a shame, as even just 16 years on we have a much greater understanding of dinosaurs and their geography, including places now known to have (non-avian) dinosaur remains or taxa now separate from the ones written in, (Brachiosaurus =/= Giraffatitan and Lusotitan for example).
While on the subject of getting outdated, the map of Africa is also outdated thanks to the lack of the South Sudan border, which formed four years after the book's original publishing. The book also has the bad tendency to assign certain genera to other ones entirely unrelated, as seen with the NZ ankylosaur, which is quite the reach, or Ornithomimus in Africa which... I don't evn know. I give up.
If I were writing this, and the publishers gave me the resources, I'd add the following to the Kingfisher Atlas.
- Additional third spreads for each continent.
- For North America, one on the Morrison Formation with a sauropod Seriously, why are sauropods never the main focus of the main spreads in this book?
- For Europe, an additional spread on the dwarf dinosaurs of Hateg Island. Oh, and Eastern Europe sites
- For South America, perhaps a Jurassic one about Mussaurus.
- For Africa, one on Madagascar with Majungasaurus.
- Spreads on both Dinosaur Cove, Muttaburrasurus, and the Hanson Formation for the Australia section.
- And of course, accurate designs that update with reprints.
But that's just me.
- Accuracy - 6/10
- Aging - 5/10
- Layout - 8/10
- Text - 7/10
- Artwork - 6/10
- Rereadability - 7/10
The Kingfisher First Dinosaur Atlas isn't trying to be anything more then being an introduction for younger readers past the boardbooks and simple sentences, and is plenty enjoyable even for older readers. I suppose it stayed in my mind because of the sheer diversity of species and art on display, even if not all of them are good. 6/10 in my book, literally.
Thank you for reading. I will update this blog post review with time to get more details.
See Also/Sources
- DK's First Dinosaur Encyclopedia
- The Great Dinosaur Atlas on Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs, which has a similar format to this book.
Comments
Post a Comment