64 pages. Full colour contents.
HarperCollins Children's Books
ISBN-13: 9780007355648
Based on the animated television series.
Contents:
4 Title Pages
6 Contents Pages
8 Dinosaur Discovery text story by Matt Crossick; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
21 D-Team Wordsearch
22 Elements Puzzle picture puzzle; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
23 Find Chomp! maze; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
24 Dinofile Chomp character bio; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
26 Terry Colouring color-in page; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
27 Name That Dinosaur! silhouette puzzle.
28 True or False? quiz.
29 The Missing Piece jigsaw puzzle; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
30 Dinofile Terry character bio; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
32 Find the Cards! maze; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
34 Hidden Names word puzzle.
35 Dinosaur Battle art page; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
36 Dinofile Ace character bio; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
38 Battle for the Dinosaurs board game; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
40 Dinofile Paris character bio; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
42 Battle at the Pyramids text story by Matt Crossick; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
55 Dinofile Spiny character bio; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
56 D-Team in Action spot-the-difference; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
57 Alpha Gang Attack wordsearch.
58 D-Team Quiz
60 Dinofile Tank character bio; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).
61 Answers
Its spot-varnished cover and glossy pages are nice, but these in isolation do not signify a level of quality. One way of viewing a publication connected to a computer game and anime is that it is there as an expensive advert, but at the same time as I acknowledge this I can also see the potential inherent in the conceit of dinosaurs used in Pokémon-style battles. This could be an excellent educational title if it only had enough nerve to shrug off the tired conventions of the modern annual, which results in two text stories being hobbled by the necessity of including pictures on every single page. Modern readers are just as capable as those in the 1950s and 60s of reading a page of text sans screencaps from an anime.
Aside from the images being shoehorned into the stories, this manages to remain above expectation for most of the page count. It is a shame that some of the manga couldn't be reproduced, or original comic strip material commissioned especially for this title. Some of the features are little better than time-wasting and page-filling exercises. Don't take that as a dismissal of the contents, as there are notable exceptions to that statement - the Elements Puzzle promotes lateral thinking in readers, and the numerous dinosaur facts sprinkled throughout the text are a joy to read through.
It could have benefited from a few non-fiction features to augment the contents. Introducing young readers to paleontology is far from the mission statement of this title, but with a dire absence of highly visible franchises capable of imparting information about the field, it nearly fulfills that role. Nearly, yet so far... Such missed opportunities are more annoying than out-and-out terrible properties, as the obvious care taken in some regards merely serve to highlight deficiencies in other aspects.
Nowhere near as accomplished as it should be, given the obvious opportunities.
