This book will change the way you look at dinosaurs for ever!
The mystery…
We know a great deal about what dinosaurs looked like, but one part of the picture is missing.
What colour were the dinosaurs?
The answer is we will never know, their colour vanished 65 million years ago. This book is about the mystery that surrounds these fantastic and fascinating creatures. Professor Potts invites children to use their imagination to wonder at what dinosaurs might have looked like.
For once a child’s guess is as good as any top experts.
Imagination is required but also a base of scientific facts. The book shows the different, amazing ways animals use colour. All essential knowledge when you are colouring in prehistoric monsters! Inside this site you will find some artwork that wasn’t used in the final book and more importantly some black and white drawings for you to download and colour in.
If you are looking for some good dinosaur sites or some recommended dinosaur books go to the links page here.
Colouring in
Check out the very popular Uneversuarus colouring in page. Where you can download black and white drawings and let your imagination run wild. If you send your finished drawings in I’ll add them to the gallery.
Reviews…
Uneversaurus is a picture book that walks kids through how paleontologists find dinosaur bones, how they put them all together, and how they make deductions about how the dinosaur lived and what it looked like by comparing them to what we know about the animals that are alive today.
Uneversaurus is illustrated wonderfully with a fun mix of splashy full color pages and small comic book like asides that manage to convey a lot of information in a fun way. The book does a great job of breaking down some pretty sophisticated science into bite sized kid friendly bits. For example, on a page talking about how scientists piece together the dinosaur bones they find, information is placed into actual puzzle piece shapes taking the extraordinary job of piecing together dinosaurs and likening it to puzzle building which all kids can understand.
The book is great not just for explaining the science of dinosaur digging to kids but also for encouraging them to use their imaginations and make their own deductions. After explaining why different animals are colored different ways, to blend into their surroundings or to scare away predators you open up to a full page of colorful pteradons, flying through the sky in all colors of the rainbow. Unlike many kids books Uneversaurus shows kids that it’s okay to not know something for sure.
The book is marketed as being for kids aged 4-8, and is a slim colorful volume like most picture books geared for pre-schoolers, but I think while 4, 5, or even 6 year olds may enjoy looking at the colorful dinosaur pictures the science is still a little too far above their heads. As well as the science is broken down it is still better suited for the older side of that age spectrum.
In this refreshingly new approach, Professor Potts uses science to help children imagine what dinosaurs might have looked like. Examining the techniques that animals use to either blend in or stand out, this illustrated book invites children to use logic and imagination to decide what dinosaurs really looked like. Guaranteed to prompt discussion in the classroom.
Short books need even better structure than long ones, and this one is just right. Two parts – the first putting dinosaurs together from bones into skeletons, and then getting dinosaurs to complain they don’t have any colour, and then the second part giving them colour, including some wild fantasy colours. Dinosaurs big and small, dull and bright, real like the stegosaurus and imaginary like the superdupersaurus, they peer and jump out of page after page here, staring at the reader, asking ‘don’t leave us like this!’ and ‘am I red because the volcanoes exploded?’ or ‘if I ate raspberry ripple ice-cream would I become a pink and white dinosaur?’.
Adrian Potts (‘Professor Potts’ on the front page) weaves some geological or archaeological information in at the start, but the tone is informal: one dinosaur skeleton says to another ‘you’ve got no clothes on!’. Another wants a skin and gets a strawberry blonde hair-do. Once Potts gives them all a shape, they then complain they have no colour, so that’s what they get next. Some wanted and needed it in order to hide (plenty about camouflage here), others to avoid being eaten (‘food is not blue!’), and yet others simply didn’t care – they were too big for it to matter.
Illustrations are not only brightly coloured but interactive – you turn your head with the images, you look up and down and sometimes at small dinosaurs through the mouths of big ones. Some are improbable colours and ask if you like them. One endpaper is a palate of possible colours (including brontosaurus blush) and the other a dinosaur to colour for yourself. So they could be all these shapes and colours – but no one has ever seen one, actually. A novelty item which offers much more.
» Camille
This book uses humor and science to speculate about the coloration and appearance of dinosaurs. What did these creatures look like? That is the gazillion dollar question and why this clever and insightful book intrigued me. The title itself is a play on words, you-never-saw-us/Uneversaurus…
The opening end papers suggest a color wheel of dinosaur scales and the first page states the fact that “no human has ever seen a dinosaur.” Taking clues from nature, colors and patterns are suggested in the finely drawn and colorful illustrations. Were the creatures camouflaged? Were they patterned with strips or spots?
Speech balloons give the dinosaurs a chance to talk and comment. Their commentary is funny and insightful. A double spread coloring pages on the closing end papers, invite the dinosaur lover to color in his or her own ideas.
Uneversaurus – uneversawabooksogood
(Rating 5 av 5)
» Esme Stephensonreally charming book and its ideal for all my friend’s children and a perfect birthday/Christmas present – never fails to impress!
A story line which encourages kids to think about possibilities.
» Midwest Book ReviewProfessor Potts’ UNEVERSAURUS encourages kids to imagine as he embarks on an investigation of what is known about reptiles and what can be guessed. Cartoon illustrations pepper a different kind of dinosaur survey: a story line which encourages kids to think about possibilities.
Three Silly Chicks Review – Uneversaurus
» Three Silly ChicksThis book was reviewed by Three Silly Chicks – Readers, Writers, and Reviewers of funny books for kids. www.ThreeSillyChicks.com
It’s a funny thing about non-fiction picture books. They usually aren’t very funny. But now and then, a book shows up that tickles our funny bones and teaches us just a little bit, too.
Uneversaurus is just that kind of book. Okay, we must admit that were a little slow to get the title (You-never-saw-us!). We thought it was the actual name of a chick-eating dinosaur, but we are small birds with glasses and are a paranoid about things that eat small birds with glasses.
Kids will be drawn to this book’s cool cover with an eye that changes to a dinosaur and will giggle over the funny illustrations and comments from the two narrating dinosaurs. All the while, readers will learn some important scientific concepts. How do scientists use clues to figure out what dinosaurs really looked like? How would environment, predators, prey, gender and age affect how they (The dinosaurs, not the scientists) looked? Did old dinosaurs wear false teeth and use canes?
Uneversaurus is a book both serious and silly! Great for art classes and science classes alike!
Fantastic for all the family
» A readerThis magnificently illustrated, creative and humourous book will educate and entertain both children and parents alike. Professor Potts takes you to an intriguing and whimsical land of speculation and possibilty as he explores what the dinosaurs really looked like.
Worthy of many readings and will be a favourite with dinosaur fans and school librarians!
Great Schools Favourite Books for First-Graders:
Of all the dinosaur books that have crossed my desk, Uneversaurus (a fun play on a dinosaur’s name: “you never saw us”) never fails to capture attention. The best way to encourage your child to read is to cater to their interests with the books you choose. And what first-grader is not fascinated by dinosaurs? Impressively illustrated and comically written, this book inspires children to draw some of their own scientific conclusions by showing how paleontologists have pieced together facts about dinosaurs over the years. Perfect for a long car or plane ride, Uneversaurus will be a summer favorite.
This book uses humor and science to speculate about the coloration and appearance of dinosaurs. What did these creatures look like? That is the gazilllion dollar question and why this clever and insightful book intrigued me. The title itself is a play on words, you-never-saw-us/Uneversaurus…
The opening end papers suggest a colorwheel of dinosaur scales and the first page states the fact that “no human has ever seen a dinosaur.” Taking clues from nature, colors and patterns are suggested in the finely drawn and colorful illustrations. Were the creatures camouflaged? Were they patterned with strips or spots?
Speech balloons give the dinosaurs a chance to talk and comment. A double spread coloring pages on the closing end papers, invite the dinosaur lover to color in their own ideas.
Ages 4-8 48 pages David Fickling Books April 2007 Hardcover Uneversaurus
by Professor Potts tackles a specific aspect of dinosaur research: this is not a dinosaur dictionary, but rather an exploration of what dinosaurs may have looked like. It explains how the actual colors of dinosaurs are – and will be – forever unknown, and that scientists can only give an educated guess as to what their true colors were.
The discussion on how to formulate a good hypothesis of what they may have looked like, by doing such things as comparing them with similar animals, showing their climate and surroundings, and/or by using other basic characteristics (body temperature, food sources, and chameleon-like capabilities), is well thought-out and thoroughly explained.
The author asks valid and interesting questions that are sure to make children think more deeply about this subject and, by using and defining the relevant scientific words for things (aposematism, for example) manages to avoid both talking down to or way above the children who are sure to enjoy this sort of book.
The illustrations, complete with comic book-style word bubbles, are amusing on different levels and sure to please both kids and adults (which can sometimes be a problem with books aimed for children who still aren’t reading solely on their own). They’re also essential to the plot, beautifully and colorfully done, and fascinating.
The inclusion of a reproducible color-it-yourself blank dinosaur page enables kids to incorporate what they’ve learned into their own theories on dinosaurs.
The step by step journey from fossil to “finished” reproduction of what a dinosaur might actually have looked like is educational, informative and fun, and perfect for use in schools. From its witty title (You never saw us!) to its two charming narrators, Uneversaurus
Check out the Uneversuarus colouring in page
Find out more about Professor Potts
Buy the book:
ISBN: 9780385608923
EAN: 0385608926