Dinotopia by James Gurney Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Dinotopia
Book Review: Dinotopia is wonderful!
Summary: 5 Stars
Being a fantastically illustrated and evocatively written account of a father & son's adventures & discoveries on a lost island.This book is wonderful and wonderfilled! A well-wrought adventure following in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne and Jane Yolen.
Suspend your beliefs, accept the mind-boggling premise and let your eyes convince your mind as you drool over James Gurney's exquisite pictures. This is for reading in company, for snuggling around a pool of light when all the day's chores are done, your home is warm, your critters fed and you all want to go on an adventure of the mind.
Imagine, you're in a library, it's closing time and you're in a hurry to leave, when your eyes catch sight of an old, well-worn volume that's humming at you to be taken home and so you do.
Take a shipwreck, Ah, who doesn't like a shipwreck; what possibilities open up with a fresh new day, all possessions lost, a slate wiped clean? Meet two such survivors, tossed upon a shore. And their trek away from the hot beach sun into the cool jungle and the noises therein.
Ooh! I love a good jungle with noises, dappled sunshine and plants with long names and ponderous leaves. And imagine meeting a dinosaur and then being surrounded by a herd of its parents. The pictures are breathtaking. You have got to see them!
Wait until you get your first glimpse of the fabled Waterfall City or Skyhopping or Canyon City. They took my breath away and my mind soared anew. There is a biblical breadth, a grand sense of time and place, to this tome.
Rarely have I read a more detailed, a more exacting recreation of a place limited only by imagination. Gave me goosebumps and so much to think about; to ponder. By my criteria of a good read, this is a Top-notch, all-round, world-class one. One to be kept and cherished; to be read with each new generation to come to your home and share your dreams. Do check out my site for my full review and many other children's books.
Book Review: Yes this is a beautifully illustrated book - and it's not just for kids
Summary: 5 Stars
First published in 1992, `Dinotopia - A land apart from time' is the winner of many awards including a Hugo. As mentioned by previous reviewers this is a superbly illustrated picture book. It looks rather like an under fives story book with it's beautiful pre-Raphaelite style colour plates (they are superb paintings in their own right), but be warned for youngsters there's a lot of big words on the pages as well. The text of the story reads very much like a Charles Dickens tale, being a journal supposedly written by a Victorian traveller, Arthur Denison, who was washed up in fabulous Dinotopia with his 12 year old son Will `in the Year of our Lord 1862'. My son (10) found the text heavy going but enjoyable (mostly I read it to him), and naturally he loved the detailed pictures. He even asked me `is this real?'.
This book is a big tome (160 nearly A4 sized pages), 265 x 245 x 12 mm, with full or half page picture plates on just about every page. Printing quality is superb, with glossy paper, and the paperback is well bound (looking rather like an oversized Giles cartoon year book). It is quite suitable for adults and teenagers as well, particularly those interested in art and dinosaurs - the latter may bias it towards boys slightly. Also have a look at the superb 2002 twin DVD film set of this book (Dinotopia), updated slightly to the present age in that the visitors arrive via a plane crash rather than shipwreck, but time-less Dinotopia itself hasn't changed. This DVD film spent $86 million dollars to turn James Gurney's original illustrations and story book into an equally beautiful motion picture - Waterfall City looks startling in both. As this DVD film is a favourite of my sons, we subsequently bought him this £15 book. See the official dinotopia.com site for more pictures and details of the book. We liked it so much, we are now ordering the matched sequel 'Dinotopia - The world beneath' for Christmas.