Tyrannosaur
by Clint Twist (consultant and writer)
This is a very complicated production. Within the binder of a handsome book there is a pamphlet and a model kit for making a tyrannosaurus. The pamphlet is based on the journals of Monty Fitgibbon, a professional vet and amateur palaeontologist who attached himself to the great Barnum Brown because of his passion for dinosaur fossils. At least this is what we are told Ð but since this is from Templar, publishers of the -Ology series, we might assume Fitzgibbon is an invention.
The time is the turn of the twentieth century, the heroic age of fossil hunting and dinosaur discoveries. The pamphlet is handsomely produced, with photographs, maps and most attractive drawings by Diz Wallis and Fitzgibbon's accounts of his discoveries - if he indeed existed and made them. Otherwise they are neatly ghosted. These will charm the literate dinosaur enthusiast and the fact that the writing makes no concessions will attract such a reader too.
The kit comes without instructions in the copy I had, though it is not difficult to assemble thanks to the picture in the press release, which the ordinary reader will presumably not have. Nevertheless, the reader who enjoys the text will enjoy working out how to make it, though of course, as with all such kits, the pleasure is in the assembling more than in the finished product. So this is more suited to a private buyer than a library, and for a child who is almost at the point of wanting adult books on the topic. On the spine it is listed as Volume 1 of The Explorer's Library, so presumably there will be further titles to come.