Millions of Years Ago

I was a dinosaur/prehistoric-era crazy kid and my folks complied by getting me picture books and modeling clay and buying boxes and boxes of Quisp and Quake cereal so I could collect the premiums inside: little plastic dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals*.

But for Christmas 1969 I received a Real Book about dinosaurs, with text and scholarship and amazing black-and-white illustrations. I felt so grown-up. (I was 9).

It was written by Edwin H. Colbert (no relation to Stephen, as far as I can tell), who, among many other accomplishments, was curator of vertabrate paleontolgy at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC and later at the Museum of Northen Arizona in Flagstaff. His wife, Margaret M. Colbert, did the wonderful illustrations. Unfortunately there's not much information available for her and her work.

Despite the many new discoveries and various upheavals in paleontology in the decades since its publication in the 50s, it still reads well. Edwin knew his stuff. And so did Margaret. This is one Christmas present that's still on the reading shelf after 44 years.

*I loved those little plastic critters. I still have several of them, although most ended up buried in various backyards of my youth. For future plastontologists to discover.