Four whole years after I first started reviewing books in the “What On Earth? Explorer” series, I’m just now finally getting to the original book on dinosaurs! Written by Nick Forshaw, and illustrated by Andy Forshaw, Dinosaurs! Explorer is presented as the journal of Eric Eagle, Senior Librarian of the Eagle-Eyed Explorer Club. As with the other books in this series (which include include Bugs! Explorer, Mammals! Explorer, and Plants! Explorer), it doesn’t feel like it fully commits to the field journal aesthetic, as it is formatted in a fairly standard fashion, just with occasional faux “tape” appearing to stick some of the pictures to the page, and only occasional instances of notations done in a more “handwriting” type of font.
Half-hearted backstory aside, though, Dinosaurs! Explorer is a fairly decent introduction to dinosaur science, with a general discussion on what defines a dinosaur, a brief history of paleontological discoveries relevant to the topic, and profiles on different species, along with their evolutionary history.
The illustrations are a bit of a mixed bag; while a little hard to quantify exactly, I feel they are generally better than those in the similarly illustrated Nature Timeline Wallbook, though there’s definitely still room for improvement. There’s an imprecision to most of them that I feel goes beyond what can simply be attributed to the art style, and the feathered dinosaurs in particular generally have a bit of the “tarred & feathered” look. As I’ve often lamented, somehow dinosaurs always seem to fare worse in their appearance in comparison to other prehistoric creatures, and that’s certainly true when comparing this to the other books in the “Explorer” series.
One feature I’ve always appreciated about the “Explorer” is the dedicated page for important individuals in the history of the relevant field of study. In this case, we have Roy Chapman Andrews, Barnum Brown (who has his own Amoeba People ballad), Bob Bakker, Jack Horner, Sue Hendrickson (discoverer of Sue the T. rex), and Karen Chin (who has her own entire page in Daring to Dig). I feel like this humanizes the field of paleontology in an important way, as knowing actual individuals inevitably helps make the reader feel more deeply connected to the subject.
The book closes its standard format on the evolution of birds, emphasizing that birds are indeed living dinosaurs. While this is an appropriate point for any book to make, I feel like it could have gone further, and discussed the amazing diversity that birds have since achieved. (Dinosaur Feathers does this especially well.) Especially considering that the next section explicitly aims to put dinosaurs in their historical place in a very visual way…
As with all the “What On Earth?” books I’ve reviewed thus far, Dinosaurs! Explorer includes a large fold-out timeline (though of course not as massive as A Brief History of Life on Earth!) that displays the Mesozoic, with several dozens dinosaur species placed roughly at the location in the timeline in which they lived. There’s a token sliver of the Cenozoic, showing a few modern birds, but I really feel like science books need to start emphasizing the continuing history of dinosaurs beyond the End Cretaceous. Far from scrappy remnants of a has-been lineage, birds are a testament to the continuing legacy of their Mesozoic forebears, and emphasizing that legacy has the potential to increase appreciation for our modern ecosystems as well.
As certain features of this book have been surpassed by subsequent books, I don’t think I will give it the same “Stomp of Approval” that I have given to other entries in the series. If you happen to come across it, though, it may still be worth picking up, particularly if you have its companion books, and are just a stickler for completion in your book collection.
Dino Dad Reviews 
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