OK, seriously. Today's first book is Dinosaur for a Day, written by Jim Murphy and illustrated by Mark Alan Weatherby published by Scholastic Blue Ribbon books in 1992. It's a day in the life of a mother Hypsilophodon and her babies. The text is marginally interesting but the illustrations... holy cow!
A few details are outdated (ah, 80's Deinonychuses), but the full-page spread paintings are absolutely gorgeous. I would have taken more pictures but the book is a former classroom title and was falling apart in my hands. There's great, almost Guerney-esque stuff in this book, if you can find it.
Former classroom titles? Yes indeed, today's books were owned by a teacher friend who recently "weeded" her in-classroom science library. This brings up an interesting issue: how often, exactly, should a school go through it's nonfiction book collection? The wonderful Awful Library Books blog has many, many thoughts on this subject. And sometimes it's pretty obvious when a book needs to go:
This is from the book, Usborne Starting Point Science: Where Did Dinosaurs Go? Published in 1991 by Usborne Publishing Ltd. Written by Mike Unwin, illustrated by Andrew Robinson, Toni Goffe and Guy Smith. There is, sadly, no indication as to who did what though.
Aside from these little cartoon illustrations, the art in this book is remarkably generic. The most interesting "Vintage" feature here are the, uh, facts given. For example, the book helpfully informs it's young 1991 audience that all of the dinosaurs, even the little cute ones, were killed off -- but not by flowers.
Also, dinosaurs were "bigger than the lizards you can see today". Yeah.
But sometimes it isn't very obvious that a book is out of date. This painting is from a book with the insta-dated title of New Dinos! The Latest Finds! The Coolest Dinosaur Discoveries! Written by Shelley Tanaka, illustrated by Alan Barnard. Published by Scholastic in 2003.
As it happens, we've learned quite a lot since 2003. The artwork in this book is gorgeous but it's sobering how fast it became outdated. For example, here the artist looks like he is *just* warming to the idea of feathered troodonts.
But then you get to this page about Willo, the little ornithopod that appeared to have her heart preserved within her body. It was recently reported that further testing proved that lump isn't her heart at all. (Sad trombone.) And teachers, this is why we use primary resources whenever we can.
Brace yourself for this next one.
That there is meant to be Masiakasaurus.
Take a minute or two, let it all sink in.
Now, to be fair, the artist probably had no idea what Masiakasaurus looked like, beyond that strange skull. I'm still not clear as to what Masiakasaurus looked like, exactly; even today all the attention tends to be taken by those crazy teeth. And back in 2003, the only thing besides those terrible teeth the mainstream press could report on this animal is the fact that "he's named after Mark Knopfler, LOL Dire Straits really IS a dinosaur rock band hurpf-durpf!"
Tangent: If anyone calls your band (or something you like) a "dinosaur" in order to imply that it is "old and busted" or perhaps even an "epic failure", counter with this:
"Oh, so you mean it ruled the world unchallenged for well over 160 million years? Becoming the arguably most successful and diverse group of tetrapods ever known? And its descendants now rule the skies? (Dramatic pause.) Yeah, f*** you."
Anyway, Masiakasaurus knopfleri. The critter, a basal Abelisaur, probably looked pretty strange in life but probably not *this* weird.
Edit: Zach's comment below reminded me that I could have sworn that there was a recent reevaluation of what Masiakasaurus might have looked like floating around online. A quick Google search and voila! (Link goes to a Dinosaur Tracking article about the paper just in case it vanishes again. Here's the paper itself.)
----
Sketch of the Day! I liked the Parasaurolophus from the art card I shared yesterday, so after some "Pokemon" doodles, I decided to tell more of his story...
