RAPTOR PACK book review

["Jordan Mallon" <j_mallon@hotmail.com>]

I recall someone onlist asking about the new Bakker book RAPTOR PACK a few 
months ago.  Well, I was just sent a copy for review from Random House, so I 
thought I might post my review here (it's going up on my site and elsewhere, 
too, which is why it sounds so formal-ish):

RAPTOR PACK

  World renowned paleontologist Dr. Robert T. Bakker and award-winning 
paleoartist Michael Skrepnick team up to present a 120 million year old 
story about a day in the life of a pack of Deinonychus.  Young minds will no 
doubt enjoy reading about the ?raptors?? encounter with a herd of 
tenontosaurs and their unfriendly run-in with a 5,000-pound acrocanthosaur.  
Dr. Bakker, in his familiar enthusiastic manner, imparts the facts as he has 
deciphered them as to how we can glean so much information about the life of 
a dinosaur from just a pile of old fossils and some knowledge of modern 
ecosystems.  He even discusses the topics of dinosaur vomit and cannibalism 
? something most people do not even bother to think about.
  The text, of course, is supplemented on nearly every page with colourful 
paintings by popular dinosaur artist Michael Skrepnick.  Mr. Skrepnick?s 
talent and flexibility are made obvious through his lively renditions of 
climbing, hunting, and belching Deinonychus.  In fact, his cover 
illustration of a leaping ?raptor? is now amongst my favourite of his works.
  RAPTOR PACK is some 48 pages long and retails for $5.99 CAN ($3.99 US) ? 
a reasonable price for the quality of the work.  It is a part of Random 
House?s Step into Reading series, and is written for children in grades 2-4. 
 Nowhere else will kids get the chance to read about dinosaurs as told 
world?s best experts and illustrators.

http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0375823034

(Warning to those hardcore paleo folks: the words "veggie-saur" and "raptor" 
appear abundantly in the text!)

Jordan Mallon

Undergraduate Student, Carleton University
Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoecology

Website: http://www.geocities.com/paleoportfolio/
AIM: jslice mallon

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