Grand Canyon (Jason Chin)

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

I recently picked up a wonderful book about the Grand Canyon by author/illustrator Jason Chin. It's an excellent and gorgeously illustrated introduction to the natural history of the Grand Canyon (in the original sense of the term, in that it includes modern wildlife and ecosystems along with the geology and paleontology). We here of course are more interested in the prehistory, but I just thought I'd mention how well rounded it was. It's for that reason though that I suspect that the algorithms that rule our lives didn't pick up on the fossil aspect, so I worry this may have flown under some paleo-fans' radar.

Anyway, about the prehistory:
The book does an excellent job of conveying the Deep Time of the canyon in very clear, easy to understand text and illustrations. The "story" of the book (such as it is) follows a father and daughter hiking up from the bottom of the canyon (conveniently for the reader, in geological chronological order). Whenever they come across a fossil, the girl's imagination runs away from her, and she imagines herself back in that era. This is illustrated with a very clever gimmick in which each fossil is literally a "window in time", as you can see in the pic below. When you turn the page, you realize the "fossil" you were looking at was really a cut-out of the next page, and you were looking at a real animal the whole time, now in its proper, original environment! It's pretty cool. It's aimed at grade-school level kids, but I would honestly consider buying it for myself even if I didn't have kids, just for the illustrations alone.
I wrote up a full review on my blog if you're interested! Check it out at Dino Dad Reviews: https://dinodadreviews.com/2018/08/11/grand-canyon-jason-chin/


Trilobites!


Another bit of paleoart featuring Hybodus sharks.

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for sharing that! If I'd known I'd have looked for it when I was at the Grand Canyon last year.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

I've seen at least one copy in the children's section of every Barnes and Noble I've visited over the last year, so they aren't hard to find!