Pop-Up Dinosaur Encyclopedia

Product Description

From renowned pop-up masters Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart comes an awe-inspiring tribute to the world's most beloved extinct animals and their 180-million-year reign on our planet.

Open this book and a massive T. REX springs out, flashing a startling jawful of jagged teeth. Turn the next spread and a ravishing raptor unfurls and appears to fly off the edge of the page. Inside the amazing ENCYCLOPEDIA PREHISTORICA: DINOSAURS are "shield bearers" in full-body armor, creatures with frilly headgear, and weighty, long-necked giants. There are even amusing tidbits on the history of paleontology itself — like a pop-up version of a Victorian New Year's dinner in the belly of a dinosaur model, or a pair of scientists locked in a literal tug-of-war over bones.

Full of fascinating facts and lighthearted good humor, this breathtaking book includes fascinating, up-to-the-minute information about popular dinosaurs as well as many lesser-known varieties. With each of six spreads featuring one spectacular, large pop-up as well as booklets of smaller pop-ups and text, ENCYCLOPEDIA PREHISTORICA: DINOSAURS is a magnificent display of paper engineering and creativity — an astonishing book that will be read, admired, and treasured forever.

Top Reviews

My almost 4 year old LOVES this book. Beautiful popups EVERYWHERE.
by J Webb (5 out of 5 stars)
March 24, 2016

This book is incredibly impressive. I am including a video so you can sort of see the depth and involvement this brings.

When it arrived it appeared very thick. On the sides though it clearly doesnt look like alot of pages. BUT it is filled will alot of fun and factual information. There are 5+ popups per page and each has its own bit of information.

Types of dinos, Carnivores, Herbivores, Feathered, Armored, Biggest etc. Lots of different information in this book.

I got it for my dino obsessed 3 year old. Will be 4 in two months. He absolutely LOVES it. He wants it read as a bedtime story but there is so much info you could prob do 1 page per night and extend it out. He never wants us to stop reading it.

I have always been a fan of popups and this is the most impressive popup I have seen yet. Its just GORGEOUS.
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My Four-Year-Old Hasn't Destroyed It Yet!
by Brains Report (5 out of 5 stars)
January 19, 2018

The three PROS of the Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up:
1. It has quickly become one of my son's most valued possessions.
2. It's teaching my son about how to have nice things (something my wife and I still need to learn.)
3. We've had it for over a month now without any damage.

The three CONS are:
1. I have to protect the book with my life to ensure Bucky doesn't destroy it.
2. I have to read the book to my four-year-old. My son refuses to read.
3. It costs more than most 12-page books

We bought the Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs because we like to give each of our boys a good book for Christmas each year. We give them the book on Christmas Eve so we can sit quietly as a family and read the evening before Krampus comes to destroy us all. Bucky was pretty enamored with it.

Bucky just turned four, and as a helicopter parent, I feel like I still need to hover over him when he's reading the book so he closes all the pop-ups and doesn't smash them. However, when he has had unsupervised time with it, the book has proven to be quite resilient.

As for the content, there is a lot of information that I didn't know, and the author pokes fun of my antiquated understanding of dinosaurs. Did you know T Rex wasn't the biggest, baddest dinosaur under the Mambo Sun? It's true! There was some made up guy named gigantosaurus who owned him.

Anyway, I strongly recommend this book if you have a youngster in your life who is interested in dinosaurs, pop-up books, and the inevitable decline of man. Five stars!

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I'm here to help!
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THIS IS NOT A BOOK!! It's an experience! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
by MommaB (5 out of 5 stars)
March 16, 2018

Utterly GORGEOUS, modernesque dinosaurs literally leap off the pages of this beautifully and intricately composed book. I've never wanted to shake the hand of a children's book author before, but I just may seek these people out to express gratitude and awe at what was accomplished here.

We received this only today, but I couldn't help but make a video for all of you who may be hesitant to spend nearly $30 (depending on current pricing) on a book - it is worth every single penny and more! The size is smaller than I expected but I didn't read description very well after seeing the pop-ups! As you can see, the main pop-up featured dinos are surrounded by complementary artwork. Some of the sidebars even have two pages to them, just adding to my amazement of how well this book is composed. Each animal is properly labeled with correct spelling and the text gives a brief but thorough description.

All of my kids were amazed by this book, and they range in age from 17 years to 20 months. The squeals elicited from my baby boys upon seeing their favorite "T-Wex" and "Bakkasaurus" was heartwarming to say the least. I had to stop them from giving the T-Rex a drink (because duh, Mom, he's red so he's hot) and serving the raptors their chicken nuggets, but it's all worth the giggles and smiles!

I typically write long, drawn-out reviews highlighting "pros" and "cons," but for once, I am nearly speechless. Just look at the photos and video and you'll see why.

This is not to be handled by little ones, obviously, but the other pop-ups we have don't hold a candle to this one. It is both educational and beautiful, and will be a book passed on for generations I'm sure. Highly, loftily, even aggressively recommended!! 😁
*I feel I should add that there was no compensation, discount, or request for a review. Of the thousands of items I've purchased on Amazon for my babies this is, hands-down, #1 with zero bias.

I hope this was helpful, even with all the gushing!
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Awesome. I can't imagine this gift failing.
by KittyMac (5 out of 5 stars)
February 18, 2018

I was nervous gifting this to a 10y/o because kids can be oversensitive about wanting to be seen as mature. I worried she'd think I was viewing her as a baby, giving her a pop up book. But it's so awesome, I enjoyed it myself, why would anyone not enjoy it!? She was thrilled, her older sibling was thrilled, the adults all wanted to look at the book. A huge success. The info is aimed at older readers, and the art is breathtaking. This is definitely a pop up book for adults and older kids, not toddlers or babies. Even though it has only a few pages, each page unfolds in several places. I'd say it would take 4h to go through the entire thing if you rushed. There's enough to this book to keep a person amused through many many re-viewings.
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I EXPECTED BETTER, than THIS!
by Mills (3 out of 5 stars)
October 24, 2018

Because I have purchased other Sabuda pop-up book I expected more than this book offered! Yes if you aren't familiar with his work you will think this book is great, but if you know his work you will have things to compare! The paper quality isn't good in THIS BOOK, and I have notices that the photos of these reviews look better on here, than in person, ESPECIALLY the one with the dinosaurs eating another dinosaurs, it doesn't look amazing as it looks online! I EXPECTED MORE QUALITY, it does NOT even compare in quality of my other pop-up book! Some of the creatures just look like a hot mess lol. Some pages get stuck and don't want to open correct, I don't think this is a good book for small children. The price is NOT worth THIS BOOK, BUT for other pop-up books written by him I would pay twice the price!
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Will need adult assistance to protect the pop-ups like others said
by M. S. K. (5 out of 5 stars)
July 8, 2018

Gave this to a 5 year old boy and was an instant hit with him and the whole family. Will need adult assistance to protect the pop-ups like others said, but it is made of nice strong paper not fragile. Illustrations are beautiful and construction of the pop-up amazing - the T-Rex's head popping out when you open the page is genius and humorous. One of the small pop-up has one dinosaur taking a bite of another - such lively portray of these prehistoric creatures. (How do they know T-Rex's eyes are green?) I will be buying other books by this author, he is so good.
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Deserves 10 stars!
by GrandmaBlondie (5 out of 5 stars)
July 18, 2019

GORGEOUS, informative pop-up book for my dino-loving 5-yr old grandson. Full of HUGE pop-ups and little ones, great dino information, beautifully created and worth every penny. I tried to get this for last Christmas but it was sold out. Now I know why. My grandson LOVES all his pop-up books by this author! He can't read yet so it is a very fun way to get lap time with him. He will also sit and look at the illustrations on his own. Warning: A child needs to know how to take care of a book before owning one of these and might need a little instruction in how to carefully close pages. Also, keep out of reach of toddler sibs! Love it.
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Wow!! The mini dino pop-ups are just as cool as the large ones!!!
by Jonhayashi1 (5 out of 5 stars)
January 1, 2014

After enjoying all 3 of the Encyclopedia Mythologica Pop-up book series I ordered the first volume of Encyclopedia Prehistorica DINOSAURS by Sabuda and Reinhardt! This talented duo made the prehistoric encyclopedias before the myth encyclopedia books. I quickly read the book while examining the amazing pop-ups! The dino pop-ups brought back memories of my early fasination with dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History in New York City! It reminded me of both the early names of the dinosaurs while also giving me up to date information on recent dinosaur fossil discoveries! Both the old familar dinos as well as the newly discovered ones are rendored in a stylised way while having the animals shapes and anatomy fully depicted! One of the unique aspects of Sabuda's and Reinhart's work is that their pop-ups are coloured and detailed on BOTH SIDES! Most pop-ups in other books are white on the backside! I also love their addition of movement to the pop-ups that results from your opening and closing them!

While I type this review I have the pop-up Ankylosaurus facing me and I love to move the pages that it's on up and down which causes the tail to move forward and back as a defence mechanism! And the 3-D armoured head pokes in and out of it's armour like the head of a tortoise! The dinosaurs are also coloured with a variety of colours and shades of green rather then the earlier monotone shades of green in earlier depictions of them. Both colour markers and paints with speckles and sponge texture were applied to the pop-ups to give them a bright textured appearence! It brings me back to making my own pop-ups in the 1980s, but they are not the intricacy of these!! The mini pop-up stegosaurs next to the large Ankylosaurus, including a stegosaurus fighting a 2 legged allosaurus like dinosaur are marvellous too! And on the right of the Ankylosaurus are 2 mini pop-ups, one showing Boneheaded domed dinos knocking their heads together and another with a pop-up Iguanodon that showed that fossil hunters can make mistakes since Dr. Gideon Mantell thought the sharp dino's thumbs were a horn on it's nose! This dinosaur used it's sharp thumbs to defend itself from carnivorus attackers! The other pages in this fasinating book have the same kind of information on different dinos like the pop-up 2 triceratops battling each other and 1 mini pop-up of duckbill dinosaurs,Corythosaur and Parasorolophus as they stand and run on their hind legs! A Brachiosaurus looms above a man and an elephant and you can see the coloured paper mechanism that raises his head and neck on the back of this pop-up! Amazing!!

And I have to mention the 3-D pop-up head of the Tyrannosaurus Rex that pops up at me when I turn to these pages! The jaws not only open and close but the head moves out at you in a lifelike manner! It looks like you could feed it a hot dog!! And the pink inside of the mouth has a opening in the back of the mouth with a hanging ovula and a paper pointy tongue sticking towards you (me)! Both that and the yellow cardboard teeth make this a marvel of paper enginering! And there is a mini pop-up showing an Allosaurus pulling out red paper flesh from a dead dinosaur! Open and close this pop-up and he pulls out the flesh back and forth! Finnaly a winged Archaeopteryx, the missing link between reptiles and birds, of blue and yellow feathers seems to take flight with the movement of the pages! I found one mini pop-up on the last pages showing 2 early birds and one could not stand up because it's foot had torn a little from the page. So I cut a tiny retangular piece of oaktag white cardboard and glued it to the back of the leg, foot and page and after it dryed the bird stands up perfectly! This just shows the intricate minute details of these pop-ups and that this book should not be left in the hands of 5,6,7 or 8 year olds! But anyone who is a dinosaur fan, young and old will love this book! Highly recommended!! I've now uploaded a DINOSAURS pop-up video review I made to give a better idea of the quality of this book! Come on Amazon, you could at least increase the resolution of your video uploader! Both Youtube and UPLOAD SOCIETY have significally sharper higher resolution uploaders then you do!
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Freaking awesome!
by Jami (5 out of 5 stars)
January 8, 2017

This book is freaking amazing! I mean each page has three or four smaller pop ups and one big amazing one! My kids looooove it (my kids are ages 4-12). It's intricate so if your kid is a ripper or a smasher-skip this til they grow up a bit! Best pop up book I've ever seen and now I'm on the lookout for more like it!
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Recommend it.
by Roma Grey (5 out of 5 stars)
August 7, 2019

GORGEOUS, informative pop-up book for my dino-loving grandson. Full of HUGE pop-ups and little ones, great dino information, beautifully created and worth every penny. I tried to get this for last Christmas but it was sold out. Now I know why. My grandson LOVES all his pop-up books by this author! He can't read yet so it is a very fun way to get lap time with him. He will also sit and look at the illustrations on his own. Warning: A child needs to know how to take care of a book before owning one of these and might need a little instruction in how to carefully close pages. Also, keep out of reach of toddler sibs! Love it.

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