Stone Age Beasts

“It’s almost three million years ago,” writes Lerwill (Let’s Play Soccer!) in an opening worthy of a nature documentary. “Prehistoric forests cloak the land, giant beasts roam the hills, and living among them are humans.” After describing Stone Age life, the book’s introduction speculates that animals boomed in size when they no longer had to compete with dinosaurs for food, and an impressive parade of startlingly big critters follows. Each mixed-media spread by Baker-Smith (Life: The First Four Billion Years) focuses on a large-scale, almost operatic portrait of an animal, several baring their impressive teeth. In one spread, a Haast’s eagle displays an imposing wingspan, its bright orange head and sharp yellow beak popping off a blue background. Chatty, evocative insets provide facts (scientific name, weight, global location), draw a vivid picture of the animal’s daily life (readers are invited to imagine the Siberian unicorn “stamping through the snow, snorting as it goes”), and consider the cause behind the creature’s extinction. Some insets show the animals’ size relative to humans’ in a cave-art style. Infotainment-leaning visualizations (“Imagine a cuddly toy as big as your bedroom,” Lerwill writes of the giant wombat) will only help readers to savor the thrill- and chill-inducing facts on offer. Ages 6–9. (Nov.)