THE DINOSAURS OF WATERHOUSE HAWKINS by Barbara Kerley, Illustrated by Brian Selznick, Scholastic Press, September 2001

THE DINOSAURS OF WATERHOUSE HAWKINS is a picture book which will certainly be adored by young dinosaur lovers--those little kids who throw around twenty-letter-long dinosaur names as casually as if they were mentioning "cat" or "dog." But to see this book as merely appropriate for younger ages would be a serious squandering of the scholarship and artistic talents invested in this rich and beautiful biography.

Waterhouse Hawkins was the mid-nineteenth century British sculptor who, from studying a few piles of dinosaur bones, created the life-sized models that gave the world its first look at the prehistoric creatures which are so familiar today to all those little kids. Assisted by Richard Owen, the scientist who coined the term "dinosaur," Waterhouse Hawkins became the toast of England through the creations he produced for Queen Victoria and exhibited at the Crystal Palace.

The tragedy of the Waterhouse Hawkins' story occurs later when dinosaur models he spends years building for Central Park are destroyed after he criticizes the infamous Boss Tweed who was determined to obstruct the project.

But the lesson of Waterhouse Hawkins, and the reason the book is so important for older readers, is that science and history are living disciplines which are always in flux, building layer upon layer. It is so fascinating how new discoveries, even during Hawkins' later years, make the picture a little clearer and make his models a little antiquated. The ongoing process of discovery and evaluation continues, of course, to this day.

Brian Selznick has outdone himself on this project. Working with a scrapbook of photographs and Hawkins' original drawings, and traveling to see the British models, he has created illustrations which give us a real sense of Waterhouse Hawkins the showman. Barbara Kerley ("Authoress of Thrilling Character") tells a fun and dramatic story and includes a detailed Author Note following the text.

Richie Partington

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