Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled

“Sci­en­tists know a great deal about dinosaurs, except for one big unan­swered (and like­ly unan­swer­able) ques­tion: what did they actu­al­ly look like? With only a few rare fos­siliza­tions of soft parts, many dinosaur characteristics—from skin col­or and tex­ture to thick­ness of mus­cles and facial expressions—remain a mys­tery. To cre­ate images for books, sci­en­tif­ic reports, and muse­ums, pale­oartists use sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and a dash of artis­tic license to come up with the best pos­si­ble approx­i­ma­tions. Thimmesh’s expla­na­tions of this process are infor­ma­tive and well researched, includ­ing quotes from inter­views with six promi­nent pale­oartists. Deci­sions about the posi­tion­ing of the dinosaurs, how to por­tray move­ment, whether they trav­eled in groups or alone, even the plants, land­scapes, and oth­er species asso­ci­at­ed with their habi­tats must be care­ful­ly ground­ed in the best avail­able evi­dence. The book’s thought­ful design shows a his­tor­i­cal pro­gres­sion of our knowl­edge of dinosaurs, some­times with ear­ly-twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry art placed along­side mod­ern images for com­par­i­son, or sequences of pic­tures that show how an artist takes a sketch of a fos­silized skull and moves, step by step, to re-cre­ate facial details. Cap­tions for the illus­tra­tions are very detailed and just as infor­ma­tive as the main text. Read­ers will come away from this excel­lent book with a new appre­ci­a­tion for dinosaur imagery and for the tal­ent­ed pale­oartists who pro­duce it.” (The Horn Book)

“Required read­ing for seri­ous dinophiles.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“This is a stel­lar look at the meth­ods pale­oartists employ to bring dinosaurs to life on paper. With a fas­ci­nat­ing mix of text, expert quotes, and out­stand­ing art­work, it show­cas­es an aspect of pale­on­tol­ogy that kids may not know much about. A lot of books focus on the action at pale­on­to­log­i­cal digs and the recon­struc­tion of what is found in them, but Thimmesh spot­lights the gift­ed indi­vid­u­als who com­bine their tal­ent with the lat­est sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge to lay­er mus­cles and flesh onto skele­tal remains, adding anoth­er intrigu­ing dimen­sion to the study of these ancient crea­tures. These artis­tic sleuths pull togeth­er clues from plant and rock stud­ies and oth­er sources to cre­ate images as thrilling for the youngest dinosaur enthu­si­asts as they are infor­ma­tive for the most stud­ied researchers. The high­light­ed pale­oartists’ ren­der­ings get full-bleed treat­ment, pro­vid­ing read­ers with a vari­ety of spec­tac­u­lar inter­pre­ta­tions of how dinosaurs appeared when they roamed the plan­et. Com­ple­ment­ing the excep­tion­al illus­tra­tions is an engag­ing, infor­ma­tive text writ­ten in a con­ver­sa­tion­al tone. Artist pro­files are includ­ed. The book is pre­sent­ed in a strik­ing palette of sat­u­rat­ed earth tones, com­plet­ing a ter­rif­ic pack­age that will draw in browsers and serve report writ­ers while inspir­ing young artists to con­sid­er apply­ing their skills to this enthralling field.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“Sib­ert-win­ning author Cather­ine Thimmesh (Team Moon) takes a bril­liant and fresh approach to dinosaurs—through the view­points of the pale­oartists who paint their portraits.

“Recre­at­ing dinosaurs is like putting togeth­er a three-dimen­sion­al jig­saw puzzle–with plen­ty of pieces miss­ing,” the author writes. When a dinosaur bone is dis­cov­ered, pale­on­tol­o­gists, geol­o­gists and pale­ob­otanists work­ing togeth­er ask them­selves a series of ques­tions: What kind of dinosaur is it? How old are the fos­sils? What did the dinosaur eat? Thimmesh explains, “Final­ly, the pale­oartists (who are often sci­en­tists as well) attempt to cre­ate an image.” One spread pairs a 1901 paint­ing of Tricer­atops by Charles R. Knight with anoth­er by Mark Hal­lett paint­ed near­ly 100 years lat­er. Thimmesh ticks off four major dif­fer­ences in sci­en­tists’ under­stand­ing of dinosaurs in the inter­ven­ing cen­tu­ry. John Sib­bick­’s col­or series of Parasaurolo­phus demon­strates the chal­lenge of deter­min­ing a dinosaur’s out­er mark­ings (“Col­or is a real prob­lem,” Sib­bick said).

“With repro­duc­tions of the pale­oartists’ paint­ings and sculp­tures, Thimmesh’s unusu­al approach allows her to dis­cuss the his­to­ry of dinosaur research. For instance, after a “vir­tu­al stand­still” dur­ing the Great Depres­sion and World War II, “dinosaur sci­ence came roar­ing back” with a “seis­mic shake­up,” most­ly thanks to John Ostrom’s 1964 dis­cov­ery of Deinony­chus, which sup­port­ed the the­o­ry that dinosaurs were warm-blood­ed. Stephen Czerkas describes the move from scales to feath­ers on the mod­el he cre­at­ed with Sylvia Czerkas for Deinony­chus say­ing, “You have to change what you think in the face of new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence.” This book will be a hit among dinosaur lovers and bud­ding sci­en­tists alike. (Jen­nifer M. Brown, chil­dren’s edi­tor, Shelf Aware­ness)