Dinotopia : a land apart from time

Summary: In 1862, after being shipwrecked in uncharted seas, Professor Arthur Denison and his twelve-year-old son Will find themselves washed up on a strange island where people and dinosaurs live together peacefully. Reaching shore with the help of friendly dolphins, the Denisons find themselves on a strange island inhabited by dinosaurs and humans living together in a peaceful, cooperative society. So begins the story told through Professor Denison's detailed and enthusiastic journal. The two castaways have stumbled onto a kinder, gentler world where reptilian wisdom has a decidedly Zen flavor: "Breathe Deep. Seek Peace. Although we find every kind of dinosaur here, it is the humans who catch our attention--characters like Tok Timbu, a blue-eyed African descended from a Yoruba king, and Nallab the librarian, who looks like a wizard gone to seed. As father and son travel the terrain that is Dinotopia, Gurney's vision unfolds via spectacular paintings that illuminate the sweeping vistas of Waterfall City and Canyon City as well as the uncharacteristically sensitive faces of the dinosaur mentors. This is the kind of lap book that readers will pore over for hours, studying the intricate drawings of dinosaur hatcheries and ingenious gadgets of every kind. As satisfying a story as it is, we are still left wanting more, since a mystery remains about what Professor Denison discovered in the forbidden World Beneath.

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