The World of SuperSaurS: rapTorS of paradiSe

released 21 september 349 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Jay Jay burridge Publisher supersaurs

“What would the world look like if dinosaurs never died out?” is the premise of the first in this new series aimed at 9-12-year-olds. The answer is “Exactly the same, but with dinosaurs”. It’s set in a 1930s where World War One has happened and people sing “Knees Up Mother Brown” in the music halls of London, but you can now ride an allosaur through the fields of Oxfordshire.

Firstly, this feels like a failure of imagination. If humankind had existed alongside dinosaurs, the world would be unimaginably different from the one we know. Secondly, if you’re going to set it in an unchanged 1930s, it would be more fun to see dinosaurs within that modern world, whereas this book all takes place in their natural environment.

But this is the book Jay Jay Burridge has chosen to write, so let’s take it on its own merits. Sadly, these are not great. It throws a lot of characters at you, but doesn’t develop any of them that well, and it sets up a mystery around the central character’s missing parents, but then sidelines it for most of the book in favour of a trek into the jungle with raptors that goes awry. It’s crying out for a clearer and more compelling story. Eddie Robson