Tuesday 30 June 2015

Dig into history with a perfect pair of books, from a mighty team! Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom's awesome "Woolly Mammoth" and "Dino Dinners" in conjunction with the Natural History Museum

"Woolly Mammoth" by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom (Natural History Museum / Frances Lincoln Children's Books)

History is definitely "our bag" and prehistory is something we can't get enough of - learning about long-dead species that once roamed the planet. We've been leafing through a gorgeous pair of books from Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom, who know a thing or two about how to put together perfect history books for kids. This time they're digging even further back to uncover the secrets of Ice Age life.

In "Woolly Mammoth" you'll learn a huge amount about the gigantic shaggy beasts that roamed the frozen tundra. Woolly Mammoths are fascinating to study, and recent scientific discoveries about mammoths offer us vital clues to what the world was like back in the ice age.

We learn that mammoths once roamed the landscape where today The North Sea can be found. Mammoth teeth and other items are regularly trawled to the surface by fishermen, showing that once the land masses (including our own islands) were all linked, providing a huge area for mammoths to wander around and proliferate on.

Scientists today can learn a great deal from the frozen remains of mammoths discovered in Russia and other countries - what they ate, where they roamed and the threats they faced from primal predators and of course early man.

A stunning title but we're not quite done with prehistory yet...

"Dino Dinners" by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom (Frances Lincoln / Natural History Museum)

Dinosaurs! Children are absolutely crazy about dinos, and as Jurassic World hits the cinema, Dino mania is once again a hot topic.

Mick and Brita's "Dino Dinners" once again digs into the life and times of a huge variety of dinosaur species including all the most popular dino species that kids will easily be able to identify - and some you may not have even heard of.

"Dino Dinners" pieces together clues and theories to find out what dinosaurs ate, where they lived and how some species fed on others (we loved the idea that a pair of dinos were found locked in mortal combat, as fossils!)

Each page spread shows you a new species, how to pronounce their names (VERY important that!) and a ton of fascinating facts about them and their lives.

We're thoroughly impressed with these two. Mick and Brita have a fabulous gift for providing thoroughly absorbing and fascinating books that are also hugely entertaining too ("They don't feel boring like 'school' books" is what Charlotte said about these).

There are more in the Frances Lincoln / Natural History range on the FL website.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Frances Lincoln Children's Books)