Kids Book: Prehistoric A to Z Marine Animals

Prehistoric Life has been the favorite subject of study with the younger kid since the beginning of this year. It started gradually and organically after the study of countries of the world and flags of the world.

Noticing how countries' names have changed and "ownership" has changed and how new countries came about and how flags changed over time for some countries, we started wondering what it was like before we had countries, before we knew about languages and stuff that people wrote down in books as history.

A separate post on the list of Books on Prehistoric Life is in the works. But, meanwhile, the kid wanted to make a simple book at home.

Although there was a fascination with dinosaurs a while back, it wasn't until this time around that the subject caught my fancy. Going by the geological timeline, animals in various periods starting with Cambrian in Paleozoic all the way to our current Holocene gripped the kid's interest and consequently mine.

Of all the creatures, the vertebrates held his fascination, especially the marine vertebrates; not so much the terrestrial and avian, although they all hold a certain charm.

And, that's how this Prehistoric A to Z Marine Animals came about. The animals for each letter and the facts to share about them was the kid's decision. Doing research to get that info was also his job. I merely acted as the typist, illustrator, fact-checker and book-maker.

Research came primarily from this wonderful Dorling Kindersley (DK) book: Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth. Anything we didn't find there was of course searched on the web, from some reliable sites.

Not all 26 animals are in the pics shared here. One particular creature, the Helicoprion, is the kid's all-time favorite and he insisted on illustrating it himself. Who can resist the spiral saw teeth?