Tuesday, August 20, 2019

More Dino Dad Reviews

And I'm dusting off this old blog once again to post more links to my new site, Dino Dad Reviews! I'm not expecting anybody to read this, I'm just trying to game the algorithm.

I'll start off with a few graphic novels I've reviewed. First is Ted Rechlin's Jurassic, a day-in-the-life story of a young Brontosaurus, much in the vein of Delgado's "Age of Reptiles" series. I've also reviewed the first two entries in Abby Howard's "Earth Before Us" series, Dinosaur Empire! and Ocean Renegades! I'll be reviewing book #3 soon.

I've made a yearly habit of reviewing prehistoric shark material during shark week, with my reviews of Paleo Sharks & Safari's Prehistoric Sharks Toob last year, and Discovering Sharks & a pop-up book about Sharks & Other Sea Monsters this year.

While books are the bread and butter for Dino Dad Reviews, I do expand my focus to other media now and then. The Big Die is a runner game based on the End-Permian mass extinction, inspired by a paleontology meme group on Facebook. Sharp Teeth is a fantastic short film that plays on audience assumptions about carnivores. I also like to share favorites from my "Primeval Playlist": fun prehistoric themed songs I enjoy listening to. I've covered the music of Ray Troll & The Ratfish Wranglers as well as Professor Flynn so far. I've also recently published my first ever museum review, looking at The Whiteside Museum of Natural History in Seymour, TX.

Speaking of branching out, I've begun reviewing children's books on evolution as well, starting with Grandmother Fish and When the Whales Walked.

Here's some other miscellaneous reviews. The Adventures of Padma and a Blue Dinosaur is a combination storybook and encyclopedia that brings some much-deserved attention to the dinosaurs of India. I've reviewed a couple of fossil themed activities: the Build Your Own Dinosaurs Sticker Book, and Mike Tharme's DIY Fossil Magnets. I think Small and Tall Tales of Extinct Animals deserves more attention, as it's a charmingly illustrated book on the somber topic of animals made extinct by human hands. Similarly, the excellent Cat-in-the-Hat tie-in Once Upon a Mastodon deserves to be better known than its rather lackluster counterpart, Oh Say Can You Say Di-no-saur?

That's all for now. I'll post more links as I review more books in the future.