Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful artwork...an adventure story with social messages
Review: I was perhaps nine when I read DINOTOPIA for the first time. Over seven years later, I still find myself returning to the wonderful pages of this book, over and over again. It sits on my bookshelf in all of its multicolored glory, begging me to take it out every so often and lose myself in the world it creates once again.DINOTOPIA tells the story of Arthur Denison and his son Will, both shipwrecked upon an island from which there is no escape, in the form of a diary, found in scholarly research years later. A delight to any child who once dreamed of dinosaurs, you follow the pair as they acclimate themselves to a world where dinosaurs and humans coexist and are both the better for it. Every new invention that is discovered is a delight and you find yourself drawn into their story even more than you might expect - I have, on several occasions, found myself singing the Dinotopia anthem included about halfway through the book. Even more so than the story though, every child will delight in the vivid pictures that accompany it. Full color illustration with as much detail as these are rare and always worth the time to savor. To any child who ever envisioned what dinosaurs looked like, his book is an eyeopener. Brilliantly colored drawings match just what the little models we used to play with showed. The care and detail in every drawing makes turning the pages a delight. At sixteen, I love this book just as much as I did at nine. Its hopeful message and visual beauty were so enthralling that I was disappointed when I realized that the island couldn't exist because a satellite would have found it by now. DINOTOPIA is definitely a favorite of mine and always will be. I look forward to my chance to read this to my children. I am sure they will find it just as wonderful as I do today.
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