Melissa Stewart
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Mega-Predators of the Past

Mega-Predators of the Past

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Howard Gray

Peachtree, 2022

for ages 6–10

ISBN 978–1‑68263–109‑6

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

It’s time for dinosaurs to step aside and let pre­his­toric mega-preda­tors like the ter­ror bird and giant rip­per lizard take the spot­light! Trav­el back in time to meet some lit­tle-known hunters that once pop­u­lat­ed our plan­et. Dis­cov­er how they lived, what they ate, and what they have in com­mon with ani­mals alive today.

Young read­ers will appre­ci­ate the book’s humor­ous voice as well as the dynam­ic brows­able design and art that’s both play­ful and sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly accu­rate. Mega fact files, info­graph­ics, and rich back mat­ter pro­vide a pletho­ra of addi­tion­al details.

Honors and Awards

  • Col­by Sharp’s Favorite Books of 2022
  • Fuse #8 Pro­duc­tions 2021 Best Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books
  • Fuse #8 Pro­duc­tions 2021 Best Sci­ence & Nature Books
  • Junior Library Guild Selection
  • NPR Sci­ence Fri­day radio show fea­ture, “These Are 2022’s Best Sci­ence Books For Kids (sciencefriday.com)”
  • Evanston Pub­lic Library 101 Great Books for Kids, 2022
  • Wash­ing­ton State Town­er Book Award Nominee

Reviews

“For­get the dinosaurs! Meet the REAL (and enor­mous) mega-preda­tors of the past. … It’s clear from the out­set that Stew­art knows how to do this non­fic­tion stuff, and do it well. This takes some stan­dard ele­ments in books in terms of scale and makes them fun. For exam­ple, every time they show a lit­tle person’s sil­hou­ette for scale, that sil­hou­ette is usu­al­ly flee­ing, falling, flail­ing, or try­ing to defend itself from the ani­mal being dis­cussed. The writ­ing itself is fun and fun­ny (it’s con­tin­u­al­ly besmirch­ing dinos and how they dom­i­nate dis­cus­sions of ancient preda­tors). And then you get to the expla­na­tion of how Stew­art did her research and you are left with NO doubts that this book is, for this moment, as accu­rate as it could pos­si­bly be.” (Bet­sy Bird, Col­lec­tions Devel­op­ment Mgr, Evanston Pub­lic Library, Evanston, IL)

“A rous­ing roundup of out­sized meat eaters … Look­ing like mod­ern crea­tures, only much big­ger, the extinct preda­tors Stew­art selects run from a 28-inch pre­his­toric scor­pi­on to ‘rail­road car’ sized pro­to­shark Mega­lodon…. with com­men­tary that sug­ges­tive­ly goes for the gus­to: ‘Dive! Swish! Chomp! Gulp! Meet the Sanders seabird—a pre­his­toric preda­tor guar­an­teed to make fish fret and squid squirm.” Each sharply detailed por­trait comes with a fact box and, enter­tain­ing­ly, a sil­hou­ette with a to-scale human fig­ure flinch­ing, cow­er­ing, or flee­ing in ter­ror. In a clos­ing twist, the final entry, the “biggest preda­tor of all time,” is the nonex­tinct blue whale (‘makes T. rex look like a puny pip­squeak’); along with a source list and an audi­ence-appro­pri­ate selec­tion of fur­ther read­ing, the author and illus­tra­tor both end with help­ful notes on their research meth­ods. A crea­ture fea­ture pre­sent­ed, and like­ly to be devoured, with rel­ish.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Stew­art’s book chal­lenges read­ers to think beyond the dinosaurs when con­sid­er­ing the top­ic of pre­his­toric mega-preda­tors from land, sea, and air. In an enthu­si­as­tic and some­times teas­ing tone, she speaks direct­ly to read­ers, using action and allit­er­a­tion to give this the pace of a sports high­light reel! … Gray’s illus­tra­tions are bright, real­is­tic, and free of gore despite the some­times vivid­ly described hunt­ing tech­niques. Author and illus­tra­tor notes give age-appro­pri­ate expla­na­tions on the research; the back mat­ter also includes sources and sug­ges­tions for fur­ther read­ing. VERDICT An ide­al book on an ever­green top­ic, this is fun, casu­al read­ing for those look­ing to expand their knowl­edge of pre­his­toric crea­tures.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“Stew­art eschews the usu­al parade of dinosaurs, turn­ing the spot­light on some equal­ly impres­sive, though less noto­ri­ous, crea­tures … Each spread includes a chat­ty intro­duc­tion, a con­densed list of specs (size, loca­tion, year of dis­cov­ery), and a humor­ous size com­par­i­son that often shows a to-scale human run­ning away from or cow­er­ing next to the preda­tor in ques­tion. The hand­some, life­like illus­tra­tions are chock full of action and expres­sion, freez­ing the preda­tors at their most dra­mat­ic moments. ‘Face the facts, friends … dinosaurs are over­ex­posed and over­rat­ed,’ Stew­art cheek­i­ly declares, and she makes a seri­ous­ly impressive—and hilarious—case.” (Book­list)

Behind the Book

“In August 2016, as I was look­ing at the arti­cles and notes pinned to the Idea Board in my office, I stum­bled upon an arti­cle I’d torn out of Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine in 2012. What was it about? Titanoboa — a fear­some 40-foot-long snake that lived in the swamps of Colom­bia 60 mil­lion years ago.

“I’d been hold­ing onto it for 4 years, hop­ing the stu­pen­dous snake would even­tu­al­ly make its way into one of my books. As I re-read all the cool facts about this pre­his­toric preda­tor, I sud­den­ly remem­bered an arti­cle I’d recent­ly read about a giant scor­pi­on that lived long before the dinosaurs, and that brought to mind giant drag­on­flies and Mega­lodon — the biggest shark to ever live. I thought it was inter­est­ing that all these humon­gous hunters looked sim­i­lar to ani­mals alive today.

“It seemed like a good idea for a book, so I did some research to see if I could find enough exam­ples of giant preda­tors that were relat­ed to and close­ly resem­bled mod­ern ani­mals. There were plenty.

“For the book to work, I knew it need­ed some­thing spe­cial, an irre­sistible hook that would excite and inspire young read­ers. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, noth­ing came to mind.

“But one day, as I was tak­ing a show­er, I began hear­ing a live­ly, humor­ous, sar­cas­tic voice in my head. It was com­plain­ing that, when it comes to ancient ani­mals, dinosaurs got all the atten­tion, and it was time for that to change. That’s the moment Mega-Preda­tors of the Past began to take shape in my mind.”

Mega-Predators of the Past

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Howard Gray

Peachtree, 2022

for ages 6–10

ISBN 978–1‑68263–109‑6

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Book Extensions

TEACHERS GUIDE
READ ALOUD GUIDE

Melis­sa talks about Mega-Preda­tors of the Past on the Read­ing with Your Kids podcast.

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