Forgotten Beasts by Matt Sewell (Children's Nonfiction ARC Book Review)

We received a free physical copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

Forgotten Beasts: Amazing Creatures That Once Roamed the Earth

by Matt Sewell

Published by Pavilion Books
on October 4, 2018
Genre: Children's Nonfiction, Animals, History

Length: 96 pages

Ages: 7 years

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Synopsis:

Matt Sewell's follow-up to the mega-hit Dinosaurs is a beautifully illustrated large-format look at the amazing beasts that time forgot--from the relatively well known, such as the saber-toothed tiger and woolly mammoth, to the obscure monsters that walked the earth millions of years ago--many now forgotten. New findings are being made every year, and research is showing us exactly how these beasts looked and lived.

Less celebrated than the dinosaurs, the range of beasts is equally impressive, every one a scary, amazing creature that actually stalked the planet. Like the dinosaurs, these beasts are awe-inspiring in their variety, with amazing details not seen on animals today and in a variety of furs, feathers, and colors, making for a stunning collection of illustrations. 

Our Thoughts:

Forgotten Beasts features extinct creatures from Earth's past, using colorful watercolor illustrations to depict their interesting likenesses. These creatures span from the Cambrian period more than 500 million years ago and up to just 80 years ago when the Thylacine (or Tasmanian Tiger) went extinct.

This educational collection shares the size, weight, diet, and time period of each of the forty-five creatures featured, as well as a paragraph or two explaining more about their names, eating habits, and what other species they can be compared to. A lot of these creatures are very similar to animals we thankfully still have around today which makes it easier for little ones to imagine them!

There is a helpful scale of time at the beginning of this book to show us the millions of years between these creatures' existence, as well as a table of contents in case you want to 'time travel' rather than follow the path of time while discovering these 'forgotten beasts'. 

About a year or so ago we visited a museum of natural history that had lots of these creatures in it (as skeletons), including a great big woolly mammoth and the massive Megatherium (which is a giant sloth)! This book has brought up those memories and made us extra excited to make a return trip to pair up the illustrated creatures in this book to the skeletons there! 

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