DINOSAUR MOUNTAIN

In Ray’s latest and most deceptively understated biography yet, she profiles Earl Douglass, a fossil hunter who made spectacularly good on his patron Andrew Carnegie’s instruction to find “something big.” Indeed he did: Exploring a remote area in Utah that eventually became part of Dinosaur National Monument, in 1908 he came upon a trove of fossils containing remains of a massive 75-foot-long Apatosaurus, a juvenile Camarasaurus that is the most complete sauropod skeleton found so far, and dozens of other dinos large and small. Using a palette of warm sandstone browns and yellows, Ray depicts the skinny, bespectacled Douglass and his co-workers exploring rugged landscapes and then carefully excavating fossils from them. Closed out with a set of context-setting afterwords, a dino-gallery and a map of the modern National Park, it’s a tale that doesn’t need hype—though the title’s two words splashed across and filling an entire opening spread will get young viewers’ juices flowing from the get-go. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 8-10)