Jurassic World The Exhibition

 Check out Dino Dad Review's visit to Jurassic World: The Exhibition at the Grandscape - The Colony near Dallas, Texas! This is one dinosaur attraction that's sure to get a lot of buzz, so don't miss out! 

Jurassic World: The Exhibition 

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!

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.

Dino Dad Reviews

So I have a new blog called Dino Dad Reviews! This Stuckasaurus blog never did attract many visitors, so I'm mostly using this post to link to a bunch of my new posts to try to boost their standings in The Algorithm.

I was super excited to get my signed copy of Cruisin' the Fossil Coastline, a sequel to Kirk Johnson and Ray Troll's classic Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. I love Ray Troll's art, and have a bit of a personal connection to it.

Speaking of personal connections, reading Jason Chin's Grand Canyon got me really nostalgic for the Disneyland Railroad. The Grand Canyon/Primeval World diorama is partially responsible for my dino obsession.

I'm pretty pleased with my review of The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, and it's proved to be a bit of a hit on my blog.

Speaking of hits, it's got nothing on the Ultimate Dinopedia (authored by the great Dino Don!), which has twice the hits of any other review on my blog!

Mammoth Is Mopey (by David Orr of Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs) is perhaps my favorite book I've reviewed so far, and I'd really like to see it in the hands of more kids everywhere!

ROAR: A Dinosaur Tour has a similar art style to Mammoth Is Mopey, though it doesn't have quite the same concern for fidelity to its subjects.

Pinnochio Rex is my most recent review, and is a great primer on the diversity of the tyrannosaur family.

That's all for now. I'm probably just going to use this blog to promote Dino Dad Reviews from now on, so if anybody stumbles upon this page, be sure to go check out that website instead!