Brown Books Kids The Secrets of Ancient Sea Monsters

The book is surprisingly thin on information, often times wrong. It may as well be a set of magic the gathering cards. The illustrations are, at times, interesting, but they're often wrong and very repetitive. The authors should realize that depicting several species who look nearly identical does not make this interesting content. No expert clearly had anything to do with this book.I would recommend dinosaur books from the DK publisher instead.

The subject matter (and awesome cover) made this seem a good choice for my six year old, and I'm so glad I checked it before handing it over. Because, basically, I returned it.Why? OK. Heed my warnings; the illustrations inside aren't appalling, but they aren't nearly the same as the quailty as depicted on the cover either. Strike one. The translations and text is just plain weird too; for example there is a plesiosaur which the book claims "looks like a walrus" either the translator has never seen a walrus or doesn't know the definition of the word. This was just so weird it was amusing. But for almost £20, clearly that's not funny. Strike two. And lastly, as soon as I saw a badly photoshopped fossil graphic that was so pixiliated it was gold meme quailty, I knew this thing had to go. So, sadly, that was final strike.I have no idea if the glowing endorsements printed on the back of the book are from genuine palaeontologists or zoologists. Or if they have even read the thing.Because obviously none of these people know what a walrus looks like.