The World’s Fair asks:
Are there any children’s books that are dear to you, either as a child or a parent, and especially ones that perhaps strike a chord with those from a science sensibility?
I’m going to offer one current favorite of the sprogs’: The Coolest Cross-Sections Ever by Stephen Biesty. This is not a book for sitting down and reading all the way through. Rather, it’s a big book where kids can flip to a page that grabs them and read through (or have someone older read to them) all the description and labels on the detailed cross-sectional diagram.
The cross-sections range from modern cities, 14th century castles, space ships, geographical features, to human anatomy, including — the perennial favorite — the digestive system. Also, it seems to have gotten the sprogs to thinking a little about the challenges of representing a three-dimensional world in two dimensions.
It’s a big book, though, so you probably need to find room for it on the top shelf of your bookcase, and you’ll want to be careful not to drop it on your toe.
This was written for this post and I only noticed that was in response to World’s Fair post after it was written, so I thought a duplicate posting was in order. And yes, she’s a budding paleontologist…
Here are three of the books hanging around my place for my niece, one old and two brand-new.
Biesty has a cross-sections book Castle. It progresses from one end of a castle to the other and there’s a bit of a plot — a siege — beginning, middle and end. The big attractions were an enemy spy hidden in every double-page spread, and …. well, toilets. Copious details about life in middle ages with all the right castle stuff.
Just purchased is dinosaur artist Luis V. Rey’s Extreme Dinosaurs. It’s a compilation of many of his recent works with a text for, roughly, 4th grade reading level, that covers much basic and broad intro material well. But the real point is the 50+% of the page space filled with weird dinosaurs in eye-popping color. The cover [at Amazon?] says it all. Organized by continent, there are quite a few feathered dinosaurs, and I actually used this as a companion to Mark Norell’s Unearthing the Dragon, which I read about a month ago and reviewed here at sciblogs. Rey’s book includes all the dino/bird-bird/dino melds covered in Norell’s book and includes a pronouncing glossary of species’ scientific names. Norell’s 8-book reading list includes a book Rey co-authored and his description fits this book. “…these creatures, rendered at the limit of credulity, are so different than how we [reconstructed]…a few years ago.”
The star of the three books here, though, is Encyclopedia Prehistorica, Sharks and Other Sea Monsters by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. [I think there are other volumes.] This is the most extravagant, complex, over the top fold-out pop-up book I’ve ever seen. I’m not a connoisseur, but it’s way beyond anything in my universe. This was an unresearched choice I purchased with Norrel’s book from a book club as an extra, website-only, 3-for-the-price-of-2 sale. I haven’t checked list price but likely it’s $20-30. For that you get 6 double-page spreads. But, each of these has 2, 3 or 4 mini pages in the corners and sides — every available space not occupied by the giant pop-ups that emerge from the center fold. These mini pages tuck in at a corner like scrapbook photograph corner mounts. These in turn are pop-ups and about half of them have multiple pages. Some of these are incredibly intricate and besides lots of ancient sea monsters include some paleontological history [including 19th century fossil hunter Mary Anning] and two with clear plastic incorporated representing water surface, the intro with tetrapods coming onto land, half-in, half-out of then water and a close with the Loch Ness monster.
Page = double-page spread. Page 1: Sea scorpions and trilobites. Page 2: Giant dino-eating croc with a dino’s tail poised between it’s closing jaws. Page 3: Huge shark who’s entire head comes right out about 8 inches, with great interior detail. Page 4. A kronosauris fossil skeleton rises up with ichthyosaurs and liopleurodon et. al. in the surrounding 4 mini pages. Page 5: A stupendous battle arises, including plumes of water, between two long necked plesiosaurs, almost interwoven, who defend themselves against a mosasaurus whose tail raises higher than their heads. This is another 8″ high spectacle. Finally, Page 6 is marine mammals [and a marine bird] starring basilosaurus and ambulocetus.
There are jaws with lots of big teeth coming out right at the reader or at each other all over the place. The cover claims there are 35 pop-ups inside. I haven’t actually read it yet and my niece has seen it once, right before she went to Hawaii for 3 weeks. Yeah, tough summer vacation so far.
Looks like most of the creatures, ecosystems, and time periods we are already familiar with from watching, many times, BBC’s Chased by Sea Monsters and Walking with Dinos/Beasts [“Beasts” is the rise of mammals]. Both series are also highly recommended and briefly reviewed in the link above. This book is moving to her house in a couple days. I’ve had time to think through some actual techniques to show her for handling it. An almost 9-year-old’s experience needs some enhancement just to prolong the life of this amazing, complex thing. I have no idea how this would actually get produced. Describing it as elaborate is clearly an understatement.
The cross-sections book looks ultra cool. I love David Macaulay’s stuff also.
can i know the price of book in rupees(Indian curency)
and how to procure the book