Interest high in dinosaurs, experts say

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"What books do you recommend about the prehistoric era?" asked a camper from this past summer's STEM camp at the Wauconda Area Library.

Prehistory is the time from the Earth's formation to the arrival of Homo sapiens, reaching across a 4.5 billion year time chunk.

Dedicated experts, including archaeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, scientists and historians examine events from prehistory, such as planet Earth's evolution, how oceans once covered the planet, early marine creatures, the emergence of dinosaurs and their ultimate demise, the landmass Pangaea and later division of continents, the Ice Age, cave men and extinct beasts like woolly mammoths.

Dinosaurs dominate when it comes to books about the prehistoric era. The hit movies "Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic World" reignited popular fascination for the oversized extinct creatures.

David Parris, curator of natural history at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton, says dinosaurs are very popular. Each new dino discovery creates interest and spikes membership in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, a professional group with online resources for students and educators.

Most of Amazon's top 20 children's prehistory books feature dinosaurs, dinosaur hunters and dinosaur museum exhibits. Interested in boning up on the subject? A dinosaur hunter and a museum library collection offer book recommendations on the subject.

When asked about book picks on dinosaurs, Paul Sereno, world famous dinosaur expert and University of Chicago professor, responded, "There are so many," and named his book about his team's fossil discovery in Argentina called "SuperCroc: Paul Sereno's Dinosaur Eater."

Sereno has discovered more than 30 dinosaurs and fossil reptiles across the globe and is a scientific affiliate at Chicago's Field Museum, home to one of the top museum dinosaur exhibits.

Dinosaur fossils dominate the natural history collection at the New Jersey State Museum. A full-size skeleton of New Jersey's official state dinosaur, the giant duck-billed Hadrosaurus foullki, conquers the museum space. Nearby, the museum's Discovery Den for young patrons offers a library, science exploration station and story time presentations.

Books include: "My Big Dinosaur Book," by Roger Priddy; "Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!" by Sandra Boynton; "Digging Up Dinosaurs," by Aliki; "The Fossil Girl," by Catherine Brighton; and "Stone Girl Bone Girl: The Story of Mary Anning of Lyme Regis," by Laurence Anholt and Sheila Moxley.

These two dinosaur reference guides are included: "Dinosaurs - The Grand Tour: Everything Worth Knowing About Dinosaurs from Aardonyx to Zuniceratops," by Keiron Pim and Jack Horner, and "Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals (Smithsonian Handbooks)," by Hazel Richardson.

The museum also recommends a dinosaur coloring book written by state paleontologist Jason Schein, "A Dynasty of Dinosaurs," and illustrated by Jason Poole.

Fossil hunters in Illinois dig up very small prehistoric critters such as mollusks, brachiopods, clams, corals and trilobites from the vast ocean that covered the state 200 million years ago.

There's no state dinosaur in Illinois, but it does have a state fossil, the Tully Monster, officially known as Tullimonstrum gregarium. This 300-million-year-old, foot-long swimming carnivore was discovered in the late 1950s by Francis Tully at Mazon Creek.

While much has been written about this lamprey ancestor, future paleontologists take note - this screw-shaped prehistoric marine animal is not yet featured in a book.

Check it out

The Wauconda Area Library suggests these titles on dinosaurs:

• "Prehistoric Creatures of the Sea and Skies," by Mark Bergin

• "Time Machine2: Search for Dinosaurs," by David Bischoff

• "How the Dinosaur Got To the Museum," by Jessie Hartland

• "Tracking Tyrannosaurs: Meet T. Rex's Fascinating Family, From Tiny Terrors to Feathered Giants," by Christopher Sloan

• "My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs," by Brian Switek