When James Gurney was a kid, he imagined museum dinosaur skeletons getting down off their platforms and wandering through the halls at night. “I wondered what it would be like to walk next to a dinosaur, to ride a dinosaur,” he says.

Most people grow up and leave their fascination with dinosaurs behind. Gurney didn’t. Instead, he created a world where ancient reptiles and humans live side by side.

Gurney’s book “Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time” is now 10 years old. Gurney has written two other Dinotopia books, and ABC broadcast a three-day miniseries this week based on the books. And in a small show at the National Museum of Natural History, some of Gurney’s paintings for his books are on display until Sept. 2.

“I wrote ‘Dinotopia’ to be the book I would have loved at 10 years old,” Gurney says.

Dinotopia’s name comes from “dino’ and “utopia” (an imagined, ideal place). But that doesn’t mean life is perfect on the island. There are, of course, meat-eating dinosaurs to contend with, as well as reminders of everyday life.

“I always like to put laundry on the line,” Gurney says, pointing to a picture with drying clothes hanging between two windows. “Dinotopia is a utopia, but to be a perfect world for me, it’s got to be a little bit messy.”