Play Book Tag discussion

A mysterious island in the middle of nowhere where people live side by side with dinosaurs. This is no Jurassic Park horror but a perfect utopia of harmonious living, vegetarian dishes and goodwill between beasts and humanity. Even a Tyrannosaurus Rex can be reasoned with and satisfied with a fish diet.
I want to travel back in time and gift this book (this whole series eventually) to my ten years old self.
I want to share in his enthusiasm as he places the volumes next to his hardcover and illustrated editions of Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires , to Edgar Rice Burroughs The Land That Time Forgot and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World . If anybody had asked him what he wants to be when he grows up, he would have answered ‘an explorer’ , never mind the fact that there were no more white spots on any world map. Surely new worlds would be discovered in the next decade or two by space flights. In the meantime, he was going to prepare by reading all the exploration and adventure books that fell into his hands.
By the time I was 10, I have read all of the others titles mentioned above, and I have also started on my first comic book collection ( Stadion ), loving the association of adventure with graphic art. James Gurney would have been the best artist I have encountered so far. He is one of the top ones even by my present standards. He also shares with Jules Verne and the other writers a passion for natural science and for technology

The start of the Dinotopia adventure is not very original, being heavily in use since Robinson Crusoe was first marooned on the shore of an unknown island.
American scientist Arthur Denison and his teenage son Will are caught in a terrible storm at sea and end up as castaways on an undiscovered island, cca. 1860. In a tropical jungle they come across a small protoceratops and, like any civilized person would do, they panic and attack the creature, only to be surrounded by the much bigger and much angrier relatives of the little dinosaur. The novel would have had a quick finish, but for the intervention of a local girl who talks calmly to the dinosaurs and explains the misunderstanding: the dinosaurs on the island are extremely civilized and generally helpful to their human partners. Bix, the little critter, will become Arthur and Will’s best friend, their polyglot guide and partner in future adventures.
The structure of the story is similar to Jules Verne: a voyage of exploration, of learning the customs, the flora and fauna of the island, the history and the technology of the new country. It starts with a rural, farming place known as The Hatchery where humans take care of dinosaur eggs and tend to the new born once they are hatched.
From there, Arthur and Will travel to increasingly wondrous vistas : Waterfall City, The Great Canal, Treetown City, Canyon City, Cornucopia, the Forbidden Mountains, Tentpole of the Sky (a Tibetan style temple), the capital city of Sauropolis and more ...

My favorite part of the book are the detailed illustrations by James Gurney, both the dinosaurs and the landscape paintings. I have read that he started as an illustrator for National Geographic, recreating from ruins and fossils the way places and animals looked in ancient times. I am glad he decided to switch to fiction, to the enjoyment of children of all ages. What red blooded kid is not passionate about dinosaurs?
Still, there is more to the story than just an excuse to draw dinosaurs and humans together. There is the fascination with technology and with the creation of an utopian society, there is the personal story of Arthur and Will as they come to terms with their new condition as castaways: the father deciding on an academic career, the young man becoming a Skybax Rider.