THE CROCODILES STILL WAIT

by Carol Carrick ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1980

Long before man walked the earth, dinosaurs ruled for a summer that lasted millions of years. On one of those long afternoons, a crocodile left the chilly beach to doze in a sun-warmed lake."" Using observations made on present-day crocodiles, Carrick shows the 50-foot crocodile pouncing on a young duckbill, then laying her eggs, protecting them from a dinosaur called Ornithomimus, watching the young emerge and head for the lake, and cracking an unopened egg with her teeth to free the last of her babies. On the side, the big bull crocodile teaches his son who's boss, and a fierece Tyrannosaur wrestles with a duckbill. The narrative breaks off abruptly: ""She twisted off a joint from the duckbill carcass. . . . Her babies swarmed around her, snapping at each other. Although she did not feed them, the mother crocodile allowed them to eat the scraps."" However, an afterword saying that the dinosaurs disappeared but the crocodiles remained ends with a sentence on a par with the first: "". . . in warm lakes and waterways, the crocodiles still wait."" For kids who prefer their natural history in the form of a day-in-the-life, this is artfully told and atmospherically pictured.

Pub Date: April 1, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION