National Geographic Prehistoric Mammals
by Alan Turner
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alan TurnerIllustrator: Mauricio Anton
Introduction: Richard L. Cifelli
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-10-01
ISBN: 0792271343
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: National Geographic Children's Books
Book Reviews of National Geographic Prehistoric Mammals
Book Review: This is a children's book.
Summary: 3 Stars
I don't know how I missed that this was geared more to the Jr.-High-School bracket; the product info page certainly wasn't shy about it. If you are looking for a kids' book on prehistoric mammals, this one's pretty good. Unfortunately, I wasn't.
The last time I bought a National Geographic book, they still came on semigloss stock between cloth covers with dust-jackets. I was expecting this, as well as what used to be their traditional division of the text into sections according to (order of animals/birds, AKC group of dog breeds...). Within a section there'd be an introductory essay, and then the individual critter descriptions, and a painting including each beast described on that page. The NG books were lush, they were heavy, they smelled good, they wore well. The idea of NG producing a prehistoric-mammal book made my heart leap.
What I have here is a book with awesome paintings of early mammals...and little else. The text is cursory and confines itself to physical descriptions of the animals and their fossils. Very little effort is made to extrapolate the likely behavior and lifestyles from the bones, an art which has become much-advanced among dinosaur specialists. There are also a lot of, to me, unscientific "value judgements" made. This beast is said to be "bizarre"; that one had "a remarkably small brain"; a giant wombat is said to be a dull, lumbering beast: "Such an idea is probably unavoidable, given its flat-footed stance and the rather blank facial appearance of many herbivores."
The paintings *are* superb; this is what decided me to keep the book--I did need a visual reference for a whole lotta mammals. But I had hoped for more text, and more out of the text, to where I could begin to guess how these creatures lived. I think the intended age-bracket would have liked that also.
Does anybody know if National Geographic plans to issue a grown-up version of this work? --If not, can anyone recommend a profusely-illustrated prehistoric-mammal book for adults?
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