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If You Were Raised by a Dinosaur
What would it have been like to be a dinosaur baby long, long ago?
Every boy and girl dreams of seeing a dinosaur…but what about BEING one? Maybe a baby with Tyrannosaurus Rex as a mom? Or a gentler giant who preferred munching leaves? With lots of fascinating facts and striking illustrations that recreate a lost world millions of years old, Isabella Brooklyn and Haude Levesque guide young readers into the prehistoric era to find out.
Because scientists never had the chance to study a live dinosaur in its natural environment, they can't know for sure what kind of parents dinosaurs were, or exactly how they raised their young. But by following the clues they dig up, and using the latest in medical technology, paleontologists can make educated guesses, and offer an exciting glimpse into what it might have been like to be a dinosaur child.
Kids will meet dinosaurs of every type, from theropods and sauropodomorphs with their grasping, asymmetrical fingers to "good mother" Maiasaurus and Psittacosaurus babies who had "nannies"--adults that raised all the children in the group.
There's also a hint of what the future of dinosaur studies will be, thanks to technology unimaginable only a few years ago.
Every boy and girl dreams of seeing a dinosaur…but what about BEING one? Maybe a baby with Tyrannosaurus Rex as a mom? Or a gentler giant who preferred munching leaves? With lots of fascinating facts and striking illustrations that recreate a lost world millions of years old, Isabella Brooklyn and Haude Levesque guide young readers into the prehistoric era to find out.
Because scientists never had the chance to study a live dinosaur in its natural environment, they can't know for sure what kind of parents dinosaurs were, or exactly how they raised their young. But by following the clues they dig up, and using the latest in medical technology, paleontologists can make educated guesses, and offer an exciting glimpse into what it might have been like to be a dinosaur child.
Kids will meet dinosaurs of every type, from theropods and sauropodomorphs with their grasping, asymmetrical fingers to "good mother" Maiasaurus and Psittacosaurus babies who had "nannies"--adults that raised all the children in the group.
There's also a hint of what the future of dinosaur studies will be, thanks to technology unimaginable only a few years ago.
- GenresDinosaurs
80 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2010
4 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 27, 2025
The worst popular baby dino book ( www.amazon.com/review/R2PBFKZ4BOZCNN/... ): 1/5
Short version: If you want the best baby dino book for older kids, get Zoehfeld's "Dinosaur Parents, Dinosaur Young: Uncovering the Mystery of Dinosaur Families" & read it in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Holtz's "Dinosaurs" in general & Chapter 36 in particular). Brooklyn's "If You Were Raised by a Dinosaur" (henceforth You) may be the worst. It just goes to show what a difference some expert consulting & personal research can make.
Long version: Read on.
Many popular baby dino books are OK, but not great. There are 3 main reasons for why I think that is: 1) They're mixed bags in terms of paleoart (Quoting Miller: "I bought the book expecting a more technical discussion of the animals discussed therein[...]but was surprised to find beautiful paintings of questionably-restored dinosaurs"); 2) They're confusing messes in terms of organization; 3) They fail to cover many baby dino-related subjects & those that are covered are done so in an insufficient manner (I.e. Sometimes, they simplify things to the point of being meaningless; Other times, they're just plain wrong). In this review, I focus on reasons #1 & #3 & why I think they make You the worst popular baby dino book.
1) Not only is You's paleoart very questionable, but also very ugly. More specifically, it consists of cheap-looking paper collages of anachronistic assemblages of mostly gray/green/brown animals with wonky anatomy in inappropriate environments. The cover may be the most egregious example (For a closer look: https://archive.ph/8RQWm ): In reference to "anachronistic assemblages", there's a generic rhamphorhynchid pterosaur, a Massospondylus family, an Apatosaurus family, & a T. rex family; In reference to "wonky anatomy", see "Review #52" in "Review updates #45 and 52 (Repost)!" ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/art... ); In reference to "inappropriate environments", it depicts a grassland environment despite the fact that "grasses seem to have been relatively rare in the Mesozoic, and did not form grasslands until much later. Ground cover in the later Mesozoic was a mixture of ferns and herbaceous angiosperms. So as far as we know, no dinosaur other than birds ever wandered in prairies or savannahs" ( https://web.archive.org/web/201304201... ).
3A) In reference to "Sometimes", You's writing is overcomplicated (as opposed to oversimplified). More specifically, it's like "when Joey wrote a recommendation letter for Chandler and Monica to send to an adoption agency, but he used a thesaurus on every word to sound smart" ( www.buzzfeed.com/hopelasater/joey-fri... ). Page 71 of You is the best example of that ( https://archive.ph/PE41T ): For 1, it's also the best example of incorrectly pluralized dino names (Seriously, "T. rexes"?); For another, it shamelessly rips off page 126 of Holtz's "Dinosaurs" ( https://archive.ph/SlRbZ ).
3B) In reference to "Other times", this is especially apparent in the Brooklyn quote below (which fails on so many levels that I need to quote the UCMP just to demonstrate): It fails to understand that Geist/Jones are 1) not dino experts, & 2) known for "publishing with a hidden agenda" ( http://web.archive.org/web/2017121623... ); It fails to understand "modern-day[...precocial...]birds and alligators", most of which DO need parental care, including most of those in Geist/Jones's study; It fails to understand Maiasaura (which, to paraphrase Anthony J. Martin, "is arguably the best understood of nesting dinosaurs, only rivaled by its neighbors in the same field area, [Troodon]"); It fails to understand that Geist/Jones's study was at least 9 years out of date at the time of You's publication.
1 more thing of note: To quote Dussart (See "Biosciences on the Internet: A Student's Guide"), "The speed and ease of email, plus its association with the web, mean that it is relatively easy to find and contact experts"; Thus, there's no excuse for You to not have expert consulting, especially given that some experts make a living from consultancy (E.g. Darren Naish: https://darrennaish.wordpress.com/ ); At the very least, having it would've helped prevent many of the textual fails (if not the visual ones too); In fact, said fails are so basic that they could've easily been avoided with up-to-date personal research; Unfortunately, there's very little of said research in You & it's mostly used incorrectly; In contrast, Sattler's "Tyrannosaurus Rex and Its Kin: The Mesozoic Monsters" shows how good a non-authoritative book can be with a lot of said research ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3488481224 ).
Quoting Brooklyn: "Not all scientists agree with the interpretation that Maiasaura babies needed parental care. Scientists Nicholas Geist and Terry Jones examined the hip and knee bones of different birds and alligators. They compared the hip bones and knee joints of Maiasaura to that of modern-day birds and alligators, which don't need parental care. The Maiasaura hips were at least as well developed as the birds', and the knee joints were no weaker than the birds' or alligators'. This might mean that Maiasaura babies did not need care from their parents as Horner believed."
Quoting the UCMP ( www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/science/eggshel... ): "In their original description of embryonic remains from the Willow Creek Anticline, Horner and Weishampel (1988) cited degree of ossification of the leg bones of Maiasaura and Troodon (then thought to be Orodromeus) to indicate the level of mobility of young after hatching. Subsequently, Geist and Jones (1996) compared extant perinatal (the developmental stage immediately prior to and following hatching) birds and crocodilians to fossil dinosaur embryos and hatchlings. They found that the extent of hip bone development was more important than leg bone development for recognizing precocial versus altricial hatchlings, and that the leg bones of Maiasaura, Troodon, and other dinosaurs did not reliably indicate the mobility of a hatchling. Geist and Jones suggested that the hatchling dinosaurs studied were likely precocial upon birth, although this does not preclude the provision of extended parental care. Horner et al. (2001) countered Geist and Jones' (1996) argument after an extensive histological analysis of turtle, crocodilian, non-avian dinosaur, and bird embryonic and perinatal bones that compared bone developmental patterns and growth rates. The authors correlated ossification and growth rates with life-history strategies. Horner et al. (2001) concluded that developmental differences (including growth rates) in embryonic and perinatal dinosaur bones from the Willow Creek Anticline indicate a precocial lifestyle for Troodon and Orodromeus hatchlings and an altricial lifestyle for hadrosaur hatchlings that necessitated parental care; this work supported their original hypothesis (Horner and Weishampel 1988)."
Short version: If you want the best baby dino book for older kids, get Zoehfeld's "Dinosaur Parents, Dinosaur Young: Uncovering the Mystery of Dinosaur Families" & read it in conjunction with other, more recent books (E.g. Holtz's "Dinosaurs" in general & Chapter 36 in particular). Brooklyn's "If You Were Raised by a Dinosaur" (henceforth You) may be the worst. It just goes to show what a difference some expert consulting & personal research can make.
Long version: Read on.
Many popular baby dino books are OK, but not great. There are 3 main reasons for why I think that is: 1) They're mixed bags in terms of paleoart (Quoting Miller: "I bought the book expecting a more technical discussion of the animals discussed therein[...]but was surprised to find beautiful paintings of questionably-restored dinosaurs"); 2) They're confusing messes in terms of organization; 3) They fail to cover many baby dino-related subjects & those that are covered are done so in an insufficient manner (I.e. Sometimes, they simplify things to the point of being meaningless; Other times, they're just plain wrong). In this review, I focus on reasons #1 & #3 & why I think they make You the worst popular baby dino book.
1) Not only is You's paleoart very questionable, but also very ugly. More specifically, it consists of cheap-looking paper collages of anachronistic assemblages of mostly gray/green/brown animals with wonky anatomy in inappropriate environments. The cover may be the most egregious example (For a closer look: https://archive.ph/8RQWm ): In reference to "anachronistic assemblages", there's a generic rhamphorhynchid pterosaur, a Massospondylus family, an Apatosaurus family, & a T. rex family; In reference to "wonky anatomy", see "Review #52" in "Review updates #45 and 52 (Repost)!" ( https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/art... ); In reference to "inappropriate environments", it depicts a grassland environment despite the fact that "grasses seem to have been relatively rare in the Mesozoic, and did not form grasslands until much later. Ground cover in the later Mesozoic was a mixture of ferns and herbaceous angiosperms. So as far as we know, no dinosaur other than birds ever wandered in prairies or savannahs" ( https://web.archive.org/web/201304201... ).
3A) In reference to "Sometimes", You's writing is overcomplicated (as opposed to oversimplified). More specifically, it's like "when Joey wrote a recommendation letter for Chandler and Monica to send to an adoption agency, but he used a thesaurus on every word to sound smart" ( www.buzzfeed.com/hopelasater/joey-fri... ). Page 71 of You is the best example of that ( https://archive.ph/PE41T ): For 1, it's also the best example of incorrectly pluralized dino names (Seriously, "T. rexes"?); For another, it shamelessly rips off page 126 of Holtz's "Dinosaurs" ( https://archive.ph/SlRbZ ).
3B) In reference to "Other times", this is especially apparent in the Brooklyn quote below (which fails on so many levels that I need to quote the UCMP just to demonstrate): It fails to understand that Geist/Jones are 1) not dino experts, & 2) known for "publishing with a hidden agenda" ( http://web.archive.org/web/2017121623... ); It fails to understand "modern-day[...precocial...]birds and alligators", most of which DO need parental care, including most of those in Geist/Jones's study; It fails to understand Maiasaura (which, to paraphrase Anthony J. Martin, "is arguably the best understood of nesting dinosaurs, only rivaled by its neighbors in the same field area, [Troodon]"); It fails to understand that Geist/Jones's study was at least 9 years out of date at the time of You's publication.
1 more thing of note: To quote Dussart (See "Biosciences on the Internet: A Student's Guide"), "The speed and ease of email, plus its association with the web, mean that it is relatively easy to find and contact experts"; Thus, there's no excuse for You to not have expert consulting, especially given that some experts make a living from consultancy (E.g. Darren Naish: https://darrennaish.wordpress.com/ ); At the very least, having it would've helped prevent many of the textual fails (if not the visual ones too); In fact, said fails are so basic that they could've easily been avoided with up-to-date personal research; Unfortunately, there's very little of said research in You & it's mostly used incorrectly; In contrast, Sattler's "Tyrannosaurus Rex and Its Kin: The Mesozoic Monsters" shows how good a non-authoritative book can be with a lot of said research ( www.goodreads.com/review/show/3488481224 ).
Quoting Brooklyn: "Not all scientists agree with the interpretation that Maiasaura babies needed parental care. Scientists Nicholas Geist and Terry Jones examined the hip and knee bones of different birds and alligators. They compared the hip bones and knee joints of Maiasaura to that of modern-day birds and alligators, which don't need parental care. The Maiasaura hips were at least as well developed as the birds', and the knee joints were no weaker than the birds' or alligators'. This might mean that Maiasaura babies did not need care from their parents as Horner believed."
Quoting the UCMP ( www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/science/eggshel... ): "In their original description of embryonic remains from the Willow Creek Anticline, Horner and Weishampel (1988) cited degree of ossification of the leg bones of Maiasaura and Troodon (then thought to be Orodromeus) to indicate the level of mobility of young after hatching. Subsequently, Geist and Jones (1996) compared extant perinatal (the developmental stage immediately prior to and following hatching) birds and crocodilians to fossil dinosaur embryos and hatchlings. They found that the extent of hip bone development was more important than leg bone development for recognizing precocial versus altricial hatchlings, and that the leg bones of Maiasaura, Troodon, and other dinosaurs did not reliably indicate the mobility of a hatchling. Geist and Jones suggested that the hatchling dinosaurs studied were likely precocial upon birth, although this does not preclude the provision of extended parental care. Horner et al. (2001) countered Geist and Jones' (1996) argument after an extensive histological analysis of turtle, crocodilian, non-avian dinosaur, and bird embryonic and perinatal bones that compared bone developmental patterns and growth rates. The authors correlated ossification and growth rates with life-history strategies. Horner et al. (2001) concluded that developmental differences (including growth rates) in embryonic and perinatal dinosaur bones from the Willow Creek Anticline indicate a precocial lifestyle for Troodon and Orodromeus hatchlings and an altricial lifestyle for hadrosaur hatchlings that necessitated parental care; this work supported their original hypothesis (Horner and Weishampel 1988)."
September 21, 2011
way too long and dry to be very good
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