Barnum Brown: Dinosaur Hunter (review)

Nineteenth-century paleontology was clearly no gentlemanly affair; first Othniel Marsh and Edward Cope raced, feuded, and cheated to discover specimens for their respective museums. Then, with a public crazed for all things dino, a Second Great Dinosaur Rush was just over the horizon, and one of its main contestants, Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, would rank among the most successful fossil hunters. In this picture-book account, Sheldon delves back into Brown's childhood to establish his early interest in fossils but spends most of the time on Brown's adult career, with particular emphasis on his discovery of Tyrannosaurus rex and subsequent finds of nearly complete skeletons. While some of the meatier details (Cope's and Marsh's intentional destruction of sites; the inaccuracy of the T. rex's originally reconstructed posture) are saved for the closing note, there's plenty of juice in the story about keen rivalries and surprising finds. Mixed-media scenes blend solidly rendered literal interpretations of the action in the text, more translucent depictions of Brown's imaginings, and a rather fanciful spread of five grinning, chummy dinos unearthed by the Brown and the rival Sternberg expeditions. Quibbles notwithstanding, the popularity of T. rex among young dinophiles should secure this title a place on their must-read list.