Redartz: Anyone catch the news this week about the remarkable fossil find? An actual dinosaur's tail (or part of one, anyway) actually preserved in amber; bones, soft tissues, and even the feathers. Truly an amazing specimen, and fascinating to any longtime dinosaur buff. It got me thinking back (not as far as the Mesozoic, only to the Bronze Age), to when I'd hungrily devour any book available about dinosaurs.
One of the first such I acquired was "Dinosaurs and More Dinosaurs", a paperback from Scholastic Books. Yes, it was ordered through one of those much beloved school book club bulletins, and I counted the days until it arrived. And I wasn't disappointed: it had some very dramatic black and white painted illustrations of a wide range of dinosaurs, presented chronologically through the eras. I first met Pachycephalosaurus through that book- loved the name, and the spelling (yes, Dino geek cred established).
My Elementary School was also the source for another favorite: "All About Dinosaurs" by Roy Chapman Andrews. In fact, I checked that book out from the school library so often that they ended up telling me not to borrow it any more so that someone else could have a chance at it. That book told the tale of Andrew's adventures in the Gobi Desert, hunting dinosaurs. Aside from superheroics, I couldn't imagine a better career goal.
Of course, that book had to be returned to the library. So to fill my home shelf with dinosaurian doggerel. I went to the local supermarket of all places. At the time, early 70's, there was a series of books called "How and Why Wonder Books" that were sold off a rack , actually next to the comic spinner rack. These books covered a wide range of subjects from nature to history, but the majority were focused on science. Of course, the edition devoted to "Dinosaurs" was the first one I hunted out. Other volumes I picked up included Prehistoric Man and Prehistoric Mammals...
A few years later, in high school, I made a trip to the local used bookstore where I regularly hunted through the dime stacks of comics (oh, for those lost days). On one trip I found this book: "The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs" by Adrian Desmond. Up to then, my understanding of those Mesozoic Mights followed the old preconception of them as dull, slow moving and slow witted. This book exposed me to the new theories and research of such paleontologists as Robert Bakker. These theories suggested that the dinosaurs may have been warm blooded like birds, and much more active and intelligent than previously thought. T-Rex and company suddenly became even more intriguing to me.
These books satisfied the inquisitive thirst in my youthful brain for facts about all those ancient wonders. Even more, they whetted my appetite for more; leading to a fascination for paleontology that lasts to this day. I once had the great pleasure to meet Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, who wrote numerous fascinating books on the subject. I still make it a point to visit the fossils at the Field Museum upon making a trip to Chicago. I had another great pleasure in taking my father and my youngest son with me on a fossil hunt in southern Indiana one day. And that bucket list of mine still includes a trip to Montana to join a dinosaur dig. One day...
Perhaps some of you have shared this interest with our long-vanished friends (who, more accurately, are still with us as birds). Maybe you had a few of these books on your shelf. Here are a few more that graced the rooms of my sons, or simply attracted my attention at the time. Any other old bone buffs out there?
