Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time

There's a lot to like about Dinotopia. It is smartly written, wonderfully illustrated, and an intriguing adventure. However it isn't very accessible for younger children, with the diary / journal style story telling and quite complex English through out. The majority of the book deals with peaceful dinosaurs and interactions with human characters, and this can lead to quite frustrating reading experiences with my 5 year old who is usually begging for more Tyrannosaurus Rex which barely makes a cameo in the story. If anything, reading it to him bores him to sleep at the moment (I always insist on finishing a book when we start it, and reading this 5-6 pages at a time will take most of a month).

At last, James Gurney's beautiful Dinotopia picture-books are back in print to celebrate their 20th Anniversary. First published in 1992, 'Dinotopia - A land apart from time' is the winner of many awards including a Hugo. As mentioned by previous reviewers this is a superbly illustrated picture book. It looks rather like an under fives story book with its beautiful pre-Raphaelite style colour plates (they are superb paintings in their own right), but be warned for youngsters there's a lot of big words on the pages as well. The text of the story reads very much like a Charles Dickens tale, being a journal supposedly written by a Victorian traveller, Arthur Denison, who was washed up in fabulous Dinotopia with his 12 year old son Will `in the Year of our Lord 1862'. My son (10) found the text heavy going but enjoyable (mostly I read it to him), and naturally he loved the detailed pictures. He even asked me `is this real?'.This book is a big tome (160 nearly A4 sized pages), 265 x 245 x 12 mm, with full or half page picture plates on just about every page. Printing quality is superb, with glossy paper, and although we prefer the substantial hard-back version, the paperback is also well bound. The books are very suitable for adults and teenagers as well, particularly for those interested in art and dinosaurs - the latter may bias it towards boys slightly, particularly as the main characters are boys. Also have a look at the superb 2002 twin DVD film set of this book ( Dinotopia [DVD ]), updated slightly to the present age in that the visitors are teenage brothers who arrive via a plane crash rather than shipwreck, but time-less Dinotopia itself hasn't changed. This DVD film spent $86 million dollars to turn James Gurney's original illustrations and story book into an equally beautiful motion picture - Waterfall City looks startling in both. As this DVD film is a favourite of my sons, we subsequently bought him this £15 book and the later TV series spin-off  Dinotopia - The Series [DVD ]. See the official dinotopia.com site for more pictures and details of the books. We liked the book so much, we ordered the matched sequels  Dinotopia The World Beneath  and  Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara  for Christmas, both equally as enchanting. So 5*. If interested, I'd buy the books ASAP as they always seem to go out of print fairly quickly, although you can generally pick up decent copies quite cheaply second-hand if that happens. Dinotopia [DVDDinotopia - The Series [DVDDinotopia The World BeneathDinotopia: Journey to Chandara

The book was packaged well, nothing really protecting the book but a thin card exterior and a thin plastic sheet. No rips or marks on the book but some very slight indents on the cover when it arrived. That would be my postal service 9/10(Would like something a bit more protective, not all delivery drivers take care)The book.. It is the book, no missing pages, text or images. 10/10.Final score 4.9/5

I was given this book when I was 10 years old when it came out in 1992. I instantly loved it, the illustrations captivated me and I loved the story. I have a copy to my 8 year old nephew and he loved it too. He struggles a little with reading but he flew through this book and spent ages on each page looking at all the detail. It’s a magical world, everyone should have a copy.

This, quite frankly, is one of the books that will forever stay within your childs memory (like it did with my brothers and I), so that one day they will sit on Amazon and buy it for their children.The illustrations are incredible, the story more than engaging and the moral code and lessons to be learned from this book are deep, loving and meaningful.I dare you find a single person on this planet who loves books and doesn't like this.