When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before Dinosaurs (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before Dinosaurs Elizabeth Bush Bonner, Hannah When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before Dinosaurs; written and illus. by Hannah Bonner. National Geographic, 200746p Library ed. ISBN 978-1-4263-0079-0$21.95 Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4263-0078-3$16.95 R Gr. 4-7 In this companion book to her When Bugs Were Big . . . , Bonner travels a couple of hundred million years (give or take) deeper into prehistory to survey the state of earthly affairs in the Silurian and Devonian periods when fish got feet and, well, you can guess the rest. The text may sport a friendly, informal tone, but the information is science-class worthy, setting the development of floral and faunal life forms into the context of morphing landforms and changing seas. The emphasis is on the evolution of scrubby, slimy plant life into the forerunners of trees and the race among four types of jawed fish to populate the seas, and lighthearted watercolor pictures deftly chart the progress. Several full or partial bleeds offer conceptualized panoramas of such familiar places as Pennsylvania, ca. 430 million years ago (a nearly plantless mountain range) and Racine, Wisconsin (a teeming reef in a shallow sea). Cartoon insets provide comic commentary that nails down each brief chapter (angry Silurian water plants chide their travel agent for their disappointing [End Page 131] foray onto dry land; one holds up her shriveled scrap of a husband and complains, "It will take weeks of soaking to plump him back up!"). Charts and timelines, a pronunciation guide, glossary, index, and lots of sound advice on how to track down child-accessible material on the pre-dino ages are included. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois