OUTSIDE AND INSIDE DINOSAURS

In her most challenging outside/inside yet, Markle looks at how scientists use technology to develop theories and answer questions about the dinosaurs: what they looked like, how they lived, why they raised their young. This is science-writing and -reporting at its best—especially combined as it is here with many outstanding full-color photographs that extend and amplify the topics discussed. Markle often begins with a question: for example, “Did Apatosaurus’ really long neck let it munch leaves in treetops?” She then describes and shows how scientists developed a computer simulation program called “Dynomorph,” which concludes that the neck bones probably locked if the dinosaur lifted its head higher than its back. Which probably means old Apat didn’t reach the treetops to browse like a modern giraffe, but merely swung his six-story neck from side to side. Did dinosaurs have feathers? Were they warm-blooded? Did they take care of their young? Eat meat or plants? Fly? Photographs show dinosaur eggs and embryos, a dinosaur intestine, the inside of a fossilized dinosaur bone, a microscopic view of two different dinosaur droppings, and lots more. Dinosaur fans will find the text an invitation to research and a model for further inquiry. Markle concludes with a challenge: “Maybe some day you’ll find new clues or develop new ways to use technology to solve the final mysteries of what dinosaurs were like—inside and out!” Outstanding. (glossary, index, other sites for study) (Nonfiction. 8-12)