I Know Dino!

The I Know Dino podcast has been going strong since the last time I discussed anything relating to it on my blog. At over 540 episodes at the time of writing, it is among the more prolific paleo podcasts out there! Goodness knows where hosts Sabrina Ricci & Garret Kruger find the time to work on other projects, but they’ve also written a couple books in the meantime. I’ve already reviewed 50 Dinosaur Tales, but now I’m taking a look at their latest publication, appropriately titled I Know Dino! after the podcast itself.

Bearing the subtitle “Amazing Breakthroughs, Mega Mistakes, and Unsolved Mysteries in Dinosaur Science”, I Know Dino! delivers on precisely that. The book introduces readers to a general history of dinosaur discoveries, organized according to different eras in dinosaur research such as the Bone Wars or the Dinosaur Renaissance.

The bulk of the book is presented in the form of profiles on different species, featured in the order in which they were discovered. This is occasionally broken up by interstitials that discuss various general topics in dinosaur research, such as dinosaur mummies or the use of claws in different species.

The majority of illustrations are by Franco Tempesta, who also illustrated Ultimate Dinopedia and the Build Your Own Dinosaurs Sticker Book. Tempesta has a bold, colorful style that lends itself well to this book, but I particularly liked the black and white illustrations of outdated ideas. It’s a great idea that shows how far our understanding of dinosaurs has come.

Almost every dinosaur gets a set of these contrasting before-and-after set of illustrations, with the text describing scientists’ “First Impressions” of the dinosaur in question, followed by “What We Know Now”. It’s a very thorough way of describing each dinosaur in a limited amount of space, and gives a great sense of the history of study. In this way the book covers vaguely similar ground to Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs!, but for a somewhat older, more detail-oriented audience.

If you’re the kind of person interested not just in the dinosaurs themselves, but in the history of paleontological discoveries, I Know Dino! provides the perfect reading experience for you. I would possibly compare it to Tales of the Prehistoric World in its historical perspective, though the two books do rather different things, and can serve as complementary texts to each other. I thoroughly enjoyed I Know Dino!, and I give it a hearty Dino Dad Stomp of Approval!