Saturday, August 1, 2020

Dino Dino Dino (Dad Reviews)

Time for more self-promotion! I guess it's been a while; there's quite a few more books featured at Dino Dad Reviews than the last time I did this!

I've managed to find multiple books over the past year celebrating the often overlooked contributions of women in paleontology. Daring to Dig has proved the most popular of these so far, which tells the stories of several women important to the history of American paleontology. She Found Fossils is pretty similar, though it expands its focus worldwide, and covers many more individuals (including scicomm celeb Ashley Hall, who just released her own book, Fossils For Kids). The Dinosaur Expert is a storybook about a girl embarrassed by her interest in dinosaurs that demonstrates the value of representation in the field, and an information page at the back mentions many of the paleontologists mentioned in the previous two books. Fossil Huntress tells the story of famous paleoanthropologist, Mary Leakey.

Additionally, I've reviewed multiple books about Mary Anning, the matriarch of paleontology, over the past year or so. Stone Girl, Bone Girl and The Dog That Dug For Dinosaurs are somewhat meh, while Mary Anning's Curiosity and Dinosaur Lady are excellent (even if the latter perpetuates the erroneous association of Anning with dinosaurs).

I've published a few more reviews on museums and other attractions, including Dinosaur Valley State Park, the creationist ICR Discovery Center, the socially-distant drive-thru version of Jurassic Quest, and the Texas Through Time museum.

I completed my trifecta of Abby Howard comics with Mammal Takeover!, and reviewed another Ted Rechlin comic, this time about the famous Sue the T. rex! I also reviewed another of Hannah Bonner's cartoon prehistory books, When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth.

I've reviewed a fair number of different forms of media recently as well. Continuing my Primeval Playlist series, I was super excited to cover the geologically themed music of The Amoeba People, and also wrote a separate post about miscellaneous prehistory-themed music. The creator of THE BIG DIE produced a new humorous paleo game called Lemme Splash!, which mocks the crackpot Brian J. Ford and his idea of dinosaur "sex lakes". I've begun reviewing documentaries as well, starting with the Ark Encounter expose We Believe In Dinosaurs, and most recently Emily Graslie's Prehistoric Road Trip. Perhaps most significantly, I covered the inaugural Dino Nerds for Black Lives livestream, an online event which saw all sorts of paleo nerds doing various live presentations to raise money for BLM charities.

Just for fun, I engaged in some coloring activities, including The Coloring Book of (Scientifically Accurate) Paleofauna. I also reviewed several dinosaur toys: the Battat Dinosaurs 5-Pack and the Wild Past Protoceratops.

I suppose that's good enough for now. I'll keep coming back her to make more of these posts in the future. I hope you enjoy my reviews!



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