A-Z Wednesday (D)


A-ZWEDNESDAY
A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicky of Reading at the Beach
To join, here's all you have to do: Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link(amazon, barnes and noble etc.).
Be sure to visit other participants to see what book they have posted and leave them a comment. (We all love comments, don't we?) Who knows? You may find your next "favorite" book.

THIS WEEK'S LETTER IS: D
Here is my "D" Title:
 Gurney - Dinotopia
Dinotopia – James Gurney
168 pages; published 1998
Arthur Denison, a Victorian scientist, and his son Will are shipwrecked on an amazing island . Here, dinosaurs live in harmony with a colony of humans, made up of other marooned travelers and their descendants. Will and his father are fascinated by the technology of their new home. They visit a hatchery, a blacksmith in Volcaneum, and a city built on waterfalls. The boy is most impressed by the Skybax Riders, people who are trained to fly on winged reptiles. Deciding to join them, he goes through their rigorous training program. In the meantime, his father finds a route to the dinosaur underground, a mythic place referred to in old dinosaur tales. He returns to find his son has ``earned his wings,'' but his discoveries are saved for (one assumes) another book. This fairytale will capture the interests of older fantasy readers--those perhaps, who enjoy the ``Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (Houghton), or Lewis's ``Narnia'' series (Macmillan). Younger readers, too, will be enticed by the dramatic, full-color illustrations, which include both panoramic sweeps of the utopian cities and detailed sketches of Dinotopian contraptions. While the women are more active than their Victorian counterparts, the adventurers here are still Will and Dad. Also, the illustrations tend to portray nonwhite Dinotopians as exotics, a stereotype better left in the past. Overall, the success of this story depends upon readers' ability to accept these creatures as peaceful, intelligent herbivores. Advanced readers who find sharp-toothed carnivores more to their liking may prefer a visit to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (Knopf, 1990), for a not-so-tame tale also set on a dinosaur isle. -- Cathryn A. Camper, Minneapolis Public Library
My review here

10 comments :

Dawn said...

Nice choice! Mine isn't as...adventurously imaginative.

gautami tripathy said...

Loved the cover, the title and the synopsis!

I posted about Deep Freeze by Lisa Jackson

Beth F said...

I remember this book. Good choice.

Zia said...

Love the cover! Nice choice!

Anonymous said...

What a great cover! The book sounds so good, might have to put it on my TBR list.

Kristen said...

I'd forgotten about this book and now my crew aren't such dino lovers anymore. ::sigh::

Nise' said...

I've seen a couple of young boys reading this one at church!

Bryan R. Terry said...

I love Dinotopia. That was one of the first books that my wife and I bonded over when we first met!

Mine's HERE

Anonymous said...

This looks like a wonderful book. My daughter or niece might get a kick out of it.

Jenners said...

That cover is sooooooo cool! I have to show it to my son ... he has a thing for triceratops!