Dinosaurs: The Fastest, the Fiercest, the Most Amazing

Kelly L. Green is the co-editor of the Children’s Literature edition
of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

The most remarkable thing about this contribution to dinosaurmania is
Gordon Sauvé’s lush, jewel-toned artwork. His prehistoric landscapes
are breathtaking in their brilliant acrylic colors, and the dinosaurs
themselves are so lifelike they seem to have individual personalities.
MacLeod has written the text around dinosaur superlatives—we find out
which dinosaurs were smallest, longest, fastest, slowest, the biggest
meat-eaters, the best parents, and laid the biggest eggs, as well as
which had the strangest tails and noses, and even which had the thickest
heads. This is quite an effective device for presenting information in a
way that children can both understand and retain, and each page holds a
few facts that will surprise even veteran dinosaurphiles (thanks, no
doubt, to Dr. Philip J. Currie, head of dinosaur research for the Royal
Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, and consultant to the project).

The book would have been well served by a tighter edit, however. One
young reader was offended by MacLeod’s portrayal of Diplodocus as the
“dumbest” dinosaur because of its small brain relative to its size
(“I don’t think Diplodocus was dumb!”). Troodon was cited as the
“smartest” dinosaur because of its large brain size. While the size
of an animal’s brain may be a factor in its mental agility, it is not,
in fact, the deciding factor. MacLeod might note that Homo sapiens has a
brain roughly the same size as dumb ol’ Diplodocus. This fault could
easily have been corrected by simply noting which dinosaurs had the
largest and smallest brains, rather than making the illogical and
somewhat insulting leap to smartest and dumbest. We are also told that
“Diplodocus had its nostrils in a weird place” (on top of its head).
While the book’s conversational tone definitely appeals to children,
there is no need to write down to them, and no excuse for the jarring
use of a slang term such as “weird” when children can easily
understand a more appropriate word choice, such as “unusual.” In
addition, MacLeod leaves the reader hanging on more than one occasion.
For example, she does not tell us why Diplodocus has nostrils on top of
its head, or how Stegosaurus used its back plates to keep itself warm in
cold weather and cool in hot.

These caveats aside, the book is packed with fascinating information
packaged in a format children will love, and has a very informative
color-coded timeline at the back (one of the best graphic portrayals of
the prehistoric time periods I have seen). Recommended with
reservations.