The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible
Taylor
1989
Submitter: Earlier this year while we were only doing curbside service, a patron called and asked for dinosaur books for her kids. Somehow I had missed this gem while weeding the J-nonfiction, and I was so glad that I found it before anyone else did. I deleted it before I looked to see how many circs (if any) it had- it hadn’t circulated at all since I got here a year and a half ago. My favorite picture is the one with the guy (Adam?) lovingly petting the little Parasaurolophus.
Holly: Here’s a prime example of knowing what your community wants. There are definitely communities where this sort of thing is in demand. There are also libraries with very strong “balance of viewpoint” statements in their collection policies, who would want to have something like this in their collection no matter how unpopular it is. I’m guessing, by Submitter’s horror of discovering this, that it is not something that is asked for in their library, and that it’s important that their patrons do not stumble on it accidentally. I don’t know Submitter or their community, so that is a possibility. I was curious about my own library’s youth collection, so I did subject searches for both “bible and science” and “animals in the bible,” which are subject headings of this book. We have a few Noah’s Ark books in the youth non-fiction 200’s (I don’t know if they cover dinosaurs…), but our only “bible and science” books are in adult non-fiction. That tracks for our community.
“Young dinosaurs would be small and easy to care for and use less food!” Oh my socks and buttons. This is something else.
As a chicken-person, that sounds about right.
I’m glad I don’t have to make decisions like this. I’m all for respecting the beliefs of others but as an Evolution-subscribing, really-old-earth Christian, I would hate for my (hypothetical) elementary school child to find this book to do a report for school.
Sad it wasn’t circulating. It’s not awful at all and if it’s the one I had as a kid, it’s a good book. Wish more would read things like this
Is that Adam kissing the dinosaur? I thought it was Tarzan .
Anyway, all I can say about this book is “Oy veh!” (And I’m not even Jewish!)
Yeah, Adam looks just a *little* too interested in that dino. It’s probably at this point that God was like, “Okay, it’s REALLY not good for Adam to be alone.”
That’s basically what the Bible says. God makes Adam, then makes the rest of the animals and has Adam name them all and find one for a “helpmeet” (which generally means spouse.) When he can’t find one in the animals, God makes a woman from Adam’s rib.
Yeah, my thought was “Adam is WAY TOO into that dino”.
Books like this are why I have to spend so much of the time in my science class explaining to my students that humans and dinosaurs didn’t live at the same time.
I watched The Flintstones on TV every day as a kid, and even I knew humans and dinosaurs never really existed together.
At least it wasn’t circulating. Good to know that parents recognized that outright falsehoods packaged as fact aren’t a substitute for science, fiction, OR theology.
So, I’m not a librarian, and I’m also an atheist. But in the interest of respecting other viewpoints and having materials available for everyone, is there a children’s religion section or similar that this book would be appropriate for?
200s are the start of most of the religious books for both adults and children. Though some Paganism and Wicca books are in the 150s, while some are near the end of the 200s.
I was thinking about how weirdly the 200s are organized, in reality. It starts with Christianity and ends with Paganism. But in reality if we put it in the order that the religions came to be it should start with Paganism and end with Islam.
Scientology should be in the 000s with the alien abductions and cryptids books.
Baha’i would follow Islam then? And non-Abrahamic would I guess float.
When I was a kid in Sunday school, I asked the teacher what happened to the dinosaurs, didn’t God love them too? She said, “Dinosaurs were a mistake.” Whoa — God makes mistakes??? Seven-year-old mind blown