Reviewer: Carlos Doebeli
Age: 9

Get ready to travel more than 200 million years into the past, to a time before the dinosaurs. In the book Super Crocs and Monster Wings, you get to know the ancestors of seven modern animals. The connections between the past and present, and how animals are different from their ancestors are fascinating.

Author Claire Eamer organized the book into seven chapters. Each one is about a different animal, with a page about the animal called “Family Ties” and a page filled with fun facts.

Before I read the book, I thought it looked interesting. After I read it, my thoughts were the same. I really liked the topic, evolution. My favourite picture was on page 53, which featured four different types of ground sloths. Ground sloths? Let me explain — about eight million years ago, huge ground sloths like Eremotherium roamed North and South America. They were the ancestors of the smaller sloths that we can see today, for example, in the Vancouver Aquarium.

Another ancient animal was the Meganeura giant dragonfly, which lived about 350 million years ago. It was so big that its wingspan was as wide as a whole door and its body was as thick as the handlebars of a bike!

At the time of the dinosaurs, a huge crocodilian called Sarcosuchus (nicknamed the Super Croc) lurked underwater. When a dinosaur stuck its head in the water, a Super Croc would snatch the unlucky creature’s snout and drag it underwater with him. Today’s crocodilians are also scary, but much smaller than the Super Croc.

This book was a great, and fun, read. Out of 10, I rate this book a 9.9 because every book has room for improvement. One word to describe Super Crocs and Monster Wings is amazing. I hope many people will read this book and learn more about Earth’s history.

(Originally published in the September/October 2008 issue of YES Mag.)