Based on published research and interviews with working scientists, Bardoe presents a lively and engrossing case study in how paleontologists examine both ancient and modern clues for insights into the diets, physical development and behavior of extinct animals. Cousins to modern elephants, mammoths and mastodons once roamed large portions of the Earth, but for reasons that are not completely understood (climate change? predation by early humans? disease?) vanished relatively suddenly. Focusing particularly on tantalizing remnants like the 55 fossilized skeletons found near one sinkhole in South Dakota and “Lyuba,” the well preserved “prehistoric popsicle” discovered in 2007 in Siberia, the author presents both facts and educated guesses—while leaving it clear that there is much still to be learned. Illustrated with bright color photos and painted reconstructions, this should be a big draw for readers who might struggle with the greater level of specific anatomical detail in Sandra Markle’s Outside and Inside Woolly Mammoths (2007). (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8413-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
Washburn’s illustrations take a nonthreatening to the subject, casting the rosy-toned dinosaurs as friendly rather than...
A highly accessible entry in the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series that takes a look at baby dinosaurs, primarily maiasaurs and oviraptors.
Zoehfeld (How Mountains are Made, 1995, etc.) explains how the current information on the peaceful, lizard-like dinosaurs who sipped from streams over 70 million years ago has been extrapolated from fossils, and that the rest is surmised from studying reptile and bird behavior and habits, which provide scientists with clues as to the nesting, nurturing of, and lives of baby dinosaurs. Hatching from small, oval eggs, the newborns ate berries while one member guarded the nest from meat-eating, nest-raiding predators. The author speculates as to the role of fossilized plants that covered the eggs of the maiasaurs and what the discovery of oviraptor skeletons may reveal about the feeding of the young.
Washburn’s illustrations take a nonthreatening to the subject, casting the rosy-toned dinosaurs as friendly rather than imposing. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027141-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
Patrick’s beloved dinosaurs (Patrick’s Dinosaurs, illustrated by Donald Carrick, 1983, etc.) enter the new millennium with an updated imaginative flight. Patrick, who locates dinosaurs on the Internet, is unaware that the dinosaurs have been observing him from their own planet; he is whisked away one night by the friendly Flato in a “giant bumblebee” of a spaceship. When Patrick lands in a dinosaur schoolyard, a clever role reversal takes place and he finds himself the human equivalent of dinosaur “show and tell.” In one particularly funny moment, Patrick is grilled with questions such as, “What is it like to be warm-blooded? Did you hatch from an egg? What is your favorite food?” A soccer game ensues, shadowed by the arrival of a foot-stomping, tree-cracking tyrannosaurus rex. Patrick is hustled back aboard the spaceship, and lands safely back in his own bedroom, where, instead of stars, he dreams of dinosaurs. The interwoven dinosaur facts of the earlier books are absent here, other than identifying a few plant-eaters, and the author still refers to the apatopsaurus as a brontosaurus. Nevertheless, dinosaur-enthusiasts will welcome the return of their long-necked, personable friends, which Milgrim depicts as cuddly, cartoon-like, Barneyesque blue, green, and purple creatures. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-50949-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
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