Prehistoric Mammals

With this work as an example, the point is made that pop-ups can take a more serious place in children's books. Berger explores the Age of Mammals, which came after the Age of Dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, and continues to this day. Readers can learn about some of the animals that existed once, how they became extinct, or how they evolved to present-day species. The ancestor of the rhinoceros, about the size of a dog, is shown to scale with its modern-day counterpart, and a horse from today is compared with its 54-million-year-old ancestor. In one of the most effective pop-ups, the horse's ivory bones are cast in paper relief against Cremins's realistic pictures. The unusual mammals in this book might have attracted an audience without the paper engineering. But there will be some who, intrigued by the pop-ups, will stay with a book they might not have otherwise picked up at all. (All ages)