Dinotopia

A huge, seductive banquet of a book. Purporting to be the journal of a nineteenth-century biologist shipwrecked with his son on a lost continent where dinosaurs and humans live in harmony, it encompasses narrative, scientific notes, music, diagrams and detailed anthropological description, all wreathed in utterly sumptuous illustrations. The paradise lost of Dinotopia has fascinated all the children to whom I've shown this testament, though the visionary quality of the illustrations has been a more effective lure than the fairly challenging text. Nevertheless, it's good to have in your classroom for the sheer hedonistic delight it offers young browsers.