DinoTopia:
 A Land Apart from Time
 James Gurney
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1998 HarperCollins edition NY USA
  ISBN: 0060280034


Being a fantastically illustrated and evocatively written account of a father & son's adventures & discoveries on a lost island.

This book leapt off the shelving cart at our local library and pleaded to come home with me. It was wonderful and wonderfilled! A well-wrought adventure following in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne and Jane Yolen. That our library system categorizes this beauty for our Junior readership, deprives everyone else of this fabulous and fantastical read.

Suspend your beliefs, accept the mind-boggling premise and let your eyes convince your mind as you drool over James Gurney's exquisite pictures. This is for reading in company, for snuggling around a pool of light when all the day's chores are done, your home is warm, your critters fed and you all want to go on an adventure of the mind.

Imagine, you're in a library, it's closing time and you're in a hurry to leave, when your eyes catch sight of an old, well-worn volume that's humming at you to be taken home and so you do.

Take a shipwreck, Ah, who doesn't like a shipwreck; what possibilities open up with a fresh new day, all possessions lost, a slate wiped clean? Meet two such survivors, tossed upon a shore. And their trek away from the hot beach sun into the cool jungle and the noises therein.

Ooh! I love a good jungle with noises, dappled sunshine and plants with long names and ponderous leaves. And imagine meeting a dinosaur and then being surrounded by a herd of its parents. The pictures are breathtaking. You have got to see them!

And then you meet a shepherdess and the adventure begins. I loved Mr. Gurney's inventiveness. His creation of a whole nother world and time. His familiarly logical homes and towns. While exploring the hatchery I was reminded of how valuable are our young. I loved the beds which looked like pies. And meeting all the people and dinosaurs of the island in all the variety of their ranches, towns and settlements, in all the varieties of their partnerships and labors. I got a great chuckle out of the Copro Carts.

Wait until you get your first glimpse of the fabled Waterfall City or Skyhopping or Canyon City. They took my breath away and my mind soared anew. There is a biblical breadth, a grand sense of time and place, to this tome.

Rarely have I read a more detailed, a more exacting recreation of a place limited only by imagination. Gave me goosebumps and so much to think about; to ponder. By my criteria of a good read, this is a Top-notch, all-round, world-class one. One to be kept and cherished; to be read with each new generation to come to your home and share your dreams.
(04/12/99)

Rebecca