Book Review: Dinosaurs Alive! The Dinosaur-Bird Connection

Last year, I reviewed the Jurassic Park Institute Dinosaur Field Guide, written by Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. and Dr. Michael Brett-Surman, published by Random House. The latest JPI/Random House collaboration is Dinosaurs Alive! The Dinosaur-Bird Connection, written by Dennis R. Shealy with the assistance of Drs. Holtz and Brett-Surman. It is illustrated by Michael Skrepnick, winner of the 2001 Lazendorf Paleo Art Award.

Dinosaurs Alive! is from the Random House Step Into Reading series. This series is designed with the various "steps" representing different age and grade groups. Dinosaurs Alive! is a Step 4 book, written for grades 2-4.

Dinosaurs Alive! focuses specifically on the relationship between birds and dinosaurs. I felt that the book does a good job in introducing this concept to young readers, although a parent might have to further explain some of the salient points to younger readers.

Dinosaurs Alive! provides pronunciation guides for the names of dinosaurs and other animals. Words that may be new to the young reader, such as cladistics and natural selection, are written in bold type and are defined in the Glossary and/or within the text of the book.

Chapter 1 "They're Alive!" introduces the concept that birds are descended from theropod dinosaurs. Chapter 2 "Evolution and Extinction" introduces the concepts of evolution and extinction. Chapter 3 "Archaeopteryx--A Dinosaur in Bird's Clothing" introduces Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and the concept of natural selection. The discovery of Archaeopteryx is described, and how Thomas Huxley had noticed similarities between the leg bones of Megalosaurus and the leg bones of the modern ostrich.

Chapter 4 "A New Look at Old Bones" briefly discuses the method of grouping animals by traits that they had in common and traits that they did not, the Linnaean method. It then introduces cladistics, which strives to group species by their relatedness by looking just at the characteristics that they have in common, a concept developed by Willi Hennig in the 1960's. Before the 1980's, birds were considered to be "cousins" of dinosaurs, descended from the same common ancestor. By using cladistics, Jacques Gauthier was able to show that birds were actually the descendents of dinosaurs.

Chapter 5 "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" examines some of the traits that birds and dinosaurs have in common. The shape of the shoulder girdle and forearm, furcula, pelvis, foot, and the hollow bones are illustrated. Chapter 6 "From Feathers to Flight" introduces the concept that at least some dinosaurs had feathers. Nomingia and Sinornithosaurus are shown as examples.

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