Land of Giants nails the scope and size of dinosaurs for elementary

The potato chip and cat video complex is strong with this one. That’s the line of reasoning that states that it’s difficult, to near impossible to engage in just one of them. Land of Giants jumps into that fray with just as much glee as the sour cream and onion potato chips or the kittens being jerk video that was in your stream earlier. Everyone loves dinosaurs, while that may sound like a scrapped tv pilot from CBS circa the late 90s, it’s more akin to the fact that people love big lizards and the concept of how massive they actually were.

Land of Giants is an illustrated book that doubles as a reference book for those elementary school ages who are doing reports on animals. This past weekend I was traveling with a couple of early middle school students and their dinosaur knowledge was astounding. One youth, in particular, was comparing the graphics of video game dinosaurs, seamlessly using their full pronunciation, and was able to cite specific attributes of what made them more authentic. We then started talking about Jurassic World and the conversation went down the dinosaur rabbit hole.

The point is that Land of Giants is a fun book that kids will enjoy looking at. The younger ages that are still in the business of sharing factoids about animals will eat these pages up about things that could easily eat us up. A majority of the book is devoted to those massive-sized creatures that used to be, but it also allocates a handful of pages to those beasts that still walk, swim or share the planet with us.

Just under half a million years ago there was the Blunt-Toothed Giant Hutia, a 440-pound relative of the rat, but was the size of a modern-day bear. The Daedon was a particularly gnarly beast who weighed almost a ton and lived in the forests of North America. Things get a bit more dinosaur centric with the sauropods and the long-necked classics that roamed the world looking for tall trees. There were also giants in the rivers, seas and a couple of them lived the island life too.

Land of Giants has a gatefold spread in the middle of the book that provides a timeline for the animals that are listed. It encompassed millions of years and is a great reminder to kids that Jurassic is just a minority when it comes to all things dinosaur. Whenever a dinosaur is profiled in the book there’s a small block on the page with a profiled outline of how large the animal was in relation to modern-day adults and children.

The art in Land of Giants is by Howard Gray and it’s done using pencils and paint to produce realistic-looking dinosaurs that won’t scare the willies out of children. However, it’s also realistic enough to provide the scope, scale, and age-appropriate wonder that kids love about dinosaurs. They’re not cartoonish, but they also don’t have the menacing, bite-you-in-half realism that the creatures realistically had.

This is the illustrated book that elementary school-aged kids and up will enjoy because of its breadth. You’ll see the dinosaurs that you expect to see, like Argentinosaurus, but you’ll also meet their scary friends that lived under their feed, in the waters, or survived to where their distant relatives are today.

Land of Giants The Biggest Beasts that Ever Roamed the Earth is by Clive Gifford with illustrations by Howard Gray and is available on Wellbeck Publishing.

There are affiliate links in this post.