Jurassic Giants

My son loves dinosaurs. This book was perfect for him. He loved every second of it. He happily read this book from start to finish!

I have been interested in dinosaurs since I was child and this is the type of book I'd wanted to read when I was eight.
It's full of information, interesting pictures and an easy read.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC

Informative and fun! As a paleontology enthusiast I love being surprised by a new non fiction children's selection. This well crafted book taught me a few new words, concepts, and discoveries, while being bright and eye-catching.

What a fantastic book! and published at the perfect time, when dinosaurs are the 'in' thing!
The illustrations are stunning and the information is current and interestingly presented. This is one non-fiction book that kids will want to read. Often!

As expected, the T-Rex is the star. Seems like half the book is dedicated to that most famous of old lizards. The comparison to the size of a bus was the best I’ve seen; I knew they were big, but not that big. Not quite as much but still impressive was the drawing showing its height equivalent to three elephants standing on each other.
Giganotosaurus looks like T-Rex’s bigger meaner brother. Would probably beat him in a fight, but—and this is weird to say—T-Rex had him on smarts.
There are bright drawings of well-defined dinosaurs, which is good because all the info dumps are dry, like a lecture.
Holy cow, a crocodile the size of a bus! That’s somehow scarier, since crocs are current and dinosaurs are only seen in movies and at the museum.
Nice glossary at the end, along with instructions on how to build your own T-rex, hopefully not to scale.
I’m giving the text a three for being lackluster though somewhat informative; I feel like it’s not interesting enough to keep the attention of the kids who’d be reading this. The artwork, though, earned a solid four. (I was told there’s be no math. . .)
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

This book not only is the illustrated guide to dinosaurs I want now, it’s the one I wanted when I was a kid.
It’s set out clearly, and explains ecverything from the food consumed to how the muscles on the legs are formed to suit the dinosaurs lifestyle.
It’s a perfect read that would see a kid through many reading ages; plus the big kids in the family would love to borrow it from time to time.

Incredibly detailed illustrations, including in depth details pertaining to each. Every acre bracket will enjoy this book, to be treasured and enjoyed time and time again. If this interests you, make sure to check out Monster Sharks as well. Both would make a welcome gift to any child’s library.

4.5★
"BITES LIKE A SHARK, RUNS LIKE A DEER.
Giganotosaurus lived in the same geologic time period as T. rex, but there is no way these two top predators could have bumped into each other.

They were separated not only by two different continents but also by about 30 million years. If the two had ever met, there would have been a lot more than a bump. There would have been an epic to-the-death battle for dominance between apex predators with the deadliest skills."

And that sums up exactly the kind of imaginary battle that kids love watching on YouTube. What if? Who would win?
[My Goodreads review includes the illustrations mentioned in brackets.]
[See illustration 1 of Gigantosaurus vs T. Rex.]

There are plenty of questions and answers in this, plus garishly bright illustrations. I say garish, because I'm prone to liking lyrical, poetical, delicate drawings or gorgeous colour photography (seahorses and reef fish), but this isn't written for me. It's written for me when I was in primary school and LOVED this stuff, as do lots of kids now.

It explains about keeping life in balance so we don't get overrun with any one thing (humans??) and end up wiping everything out.
[See illustration 2 about predators and balance.]

We can see how Pangaea spread to become the continents we know today.
[See illustrations 3 and 4 of different eras and changes in Pangaea.]

We take them apart and see what we think their structure was like, based on the fossils we have and what we know about muscles. Jaws and teeth. Legs and feet.
[See illustrations 5 and 6 of physical structure.]

And here's one you wouldn't want to find in your tropical backyard. The current crocs and reptiles are big enough, thank you!
[See illustration 7 of Sarchosuchus.]

SO WHAT HAPPENED? Why aren't these creatures running around today? Well, some of their smaller relatives are, but we're still making educated guesses about why every land animal bigger than a dog was wiped off the face of the earth.
[See illustration 8 of asteroid and volcanoes. The explanation is copied below.]

"THE END OF THE MESOZOIC ERA
Scientists know that around that time, an asteroid or comet at least six miles (10 km) wide smashed into the north coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, near a place that is now the town of Chicxulub. It caused an explosion two million times more powerful than the biggest known nuclear bomb.

At one point scientists thought the Chicxulub disaster was the sole cause of the mass extinction. But there had been widespread volcanic explosions in India for thousands of years before Chicxulub. The explosions sent dark, poisonous clouds of gases into the air, causing climate change and killing plant life. Survival would have been impossible for many species. Numerous experts now agree that the space rock collision was the last straw in a catastrophe that had already started."

Now what? Well, included is a kit where kids (or YOU!) can put your own dinosaur skeleton together.
[See illustration 9 of the skeleton kit.]

Tempting, isn't it? This is an excellent companion to Monster Sharks: Megalodon and Other Giant Prehistoric Predators of the Deep which I reviewed on Goodreads with the illustrations: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2552414144

Thanks again to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing, Becker and Mayer kids for the great preview copy from which I've copied pictures and quotes. I didn't get the kit, but I bet it's fun!

[I docked it half a star because it's only North America, but really, I'm being petty, aren't I?]

Am absolutely awesome and engaging story that kiddos will definitely love and get enjoyment from..I found the contents to be entertaining while catching the attention of my children. Nothing short of an epic book which targets children or anyone whom has a keen interest in dinosaurs.

Oddly enough, the build-a-T-rex kit didn't show up in my e-arc, but the rest of this product (ie the book side of things) seemed fine. It's a masculine sort of dinosaur book, in several aspects – it's all about carnivorous monsters and how they hacked and slashed and put paid to their meals, with a fascination in weighing everything in elephants, and measuring by school buses. You barely get a mention of the fuller picture – ie the herbivores, beyond mention that the meat-eaters were just living by the natural order of things. Still, if you have a young reader hooked on how deadly these long-extinct marvels could be to each other, here's a reasonable place to turn – although the data from 2017 that said T rex couldn't run anything like what these pages suggest imply it may already be on the cusp of becoming dated.

The illustrations in this new guide to dinosaurs are beautiful. This book would be an excellent gift for any young mind curious about the jurassic giants that roamed the earth millions of years ago.

If your kids love dinosaurs, then you have to check out this book! Full of information, tidbits and facts! My boys and I sat and read through this book and really enjoyed it! They loved the section on the T-Rex and learning more about the different types of dinosaurs that roamed the world.

Great book!!

Jurassic Giants T. rex and Other Prehistoric Predators by Jacqueline A. Ball is a book I requested and the review is voluntary. Wow, this book is so awesome! I have looked at and read hundreds of dinosaur books in my time of being a mother and grandmother but this is so terrific! It has everything a kid loving dinosaurs wants to know. If this dinosaur battled that dinosaur what would happen and why? Did T-rex has feathers? It shows the muscles and bones of the dinos, the sight range where kids can understand. Explains what they think a dino might sound like and how they came to that conclusion. There is so much knowledge in here but also the illustrations are super awesome! It looks like you went back in time and are looking at real dinosaurs! I think I want the book just to look at them over and over again. Since I just reviewed an email copy, the hardback copy I believe comes with a skeleton kit. Too cool. My cat would eat it but I would love to get a hardback to put in the living room coffee table! LOVE this book!

Jurassic Giants by Jacqueline A Ball opens with a brief overview of the Mesozoic, before delving into the first of six major foci of the book- Tyrannosaurus Rex. The others are Giganotosaurus, Spinosaurus, Allosaurus, Utahraptor, and Sarcosuchus. Each section had a few pages devoted to each dino and how it stacked up to Tyrannosaurus.

My cubs and I read this book together. I loved that Dakotaraptor was mentioned! This is a more recently discovered super raptor like Utahraptor. I didn't particularly like that 'reptile’ kept being used to refer to the dinosaurs. Yes, -saur means lizard, but we are learning more and more that many dinosaurs were warm-blooded, and really fall into a category all their own. Even my cubs called that out. A great book for any dino-loving kids!

***Many thanks to the Netgalley and Quarto Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

While I was reading this, I was looking for references to dinosaurs my 8-year-old son hadn’t heard of and when I came across two I didn’t know (saltopus and staurikosaurus) and asked him, he immediately ran over to see what I was doing (of course, he’d heard of them). We went through the book together and he immediately insisted that he needed it, which should be more than enough recommendation in my book. ;) (He also thought it was awesome that I got to review it!)

We both agreed that the illustrations were super life-like, like still life paintings, and we appreciated that realistic scenes of carnivores eating were included (not gory, but informative). The book is brimming with interesting facts about different types of dinosaurs and other creatures from the Jurassic period, as well as explaining which types of dinosaurs are relatives of modern-day birds. Since I read an e-galley, I didn’t have access to the t-rex model that the child can build, but my son and I agree that is an awesome feature.

A great book for kiddos who love dinosaurs!

My review appears on weekend notes. Thanks to the publisher for sharing this one. It would make a great addition to my son's library.

Another great one! My son loves dinosaurs and reading through this book had his eyes lit up. It was packed full of important information and fun facts. Thank you for the opportunity to read this title.