Here is the story of Ice Age beasts as told from the unique perspective of Maisie the woolly mammoth. Maisie’s Ice Age ‘who’s who’ reveals the defining characteristics of some of the most memorable creatures from prehistoric times.

Maisie’s memoir includes tales about Stella the sabre-toothed tiger, the golden girl of the Ice Age, whose megawatt smile contained 25 cm canines; the villain we all love to hate, Trevor the Titanoboa, a 13 m mega-snake who could swallow a crocodile whole; and the slightly more camera-shy Gavin the Giant Ape, who is rumoured to have inspired the myth of the Yeti! Featuring the quirky illustrations of Rob Hodgson, Maisie Mammoth’s Memoirs stands apart from other prehistoric beast titles with its characterful creatures and humorous approach to palaeontology based on some of the latest scientific research – look out for tips on how to defrost a woolly mammoth! It is the second in a series that brings animals from the distant past alive for young children.

Rob Hodgson is a British designer and illustrator. He is the author and illustrator of The Woods and The Cave, and the illustrator of An A to Z of Monsters and Magical Beings, Tattoo Time! Monster Activity, A Good Day for a Hat and Tony T-Rex’s Family Album. Michael Benton is a palaeontologist who has made fundamental contributions to understanding the history of life, particularly concerning how biodiversity changes through time. He has led in integrating data from living and fossil organisms to generate phylogenies — solutions to the question of how major groups originated and diversified through time. This approach has revolutionised our understanding of major questions, including the relative roles of internal and external drivers on the history of life, whether diversity reaches saturation, the significance of mass extinctions, and how major clades radiate. A key theme is the Permo–Triassic mass extinction, the largest mass extinction of all time, which took place over 250 million years ago, where he investigates how life was able to recover from such a devastating event. Michael has written engaging books for children on the theme of dinosaurs, as well as a significant number of palaeontology textbooks for university students. He founded the MSc in Palaeobiology at Bristol in 1996, from which more than 450 students have graduated. He has supervised more than 70 PhD students.