ALA Booklist

In this volume in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series, Zoehfeld builds on children's fascination with dinosaurs by providing technical details about fossil tracks, including information about how they were formed and how some remained, buried underground for millions of years until the soil wore away to reveal them. The clear text is illustrated with informal, colorful spreads of kids at play on the beach where millions of years earlier dinosaurs may have splooshed through gloppy mud . . . leaving footprints behind them. It may be hard for kids to imagine a time span of more than 65 million years, but Zoehfeld brings perspective (millions of years before any people or any moose or any elephants ever lived), and, with adult help, elementary-school readers will be able to handle the fascinating facts about the size of the tracks and what the tracks reveal about the dinosaurs that made them. Link this to the titles in the Read-alikes: Bone Hunters!

Horn Book (Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2006)

[author2=illustrator2]Fifty-one traditional nursery rhymes including "Jack Sprat" and "The Cat and the Fiddle" are gathered here in an inexpensive book that will remind many readers of the classic black-and-white checked Mother Goose collection. This book has blue-and-white checks and simpering, amateurish art. There are too many excellent collections of nursery rhymes to bother with this one.

Kirkus Reviews

Starting from a child's experience of leaving footprints in sand or mud, an experienced author-illustrator pair introduces young readers to the work of ichnologists studying fossilized dinosaur tracks. In this attractive addition to the long-running Let's Read-and-Find-Out Science series, gentle pastel illustrations accompany the relatively simple text to explain how such fossils are formed and demonstrate the differences among tracks and characteristics of three major dinosaur groups: therapods, ornithopods and sauropods. The language is appealing: dinosaurs "splooshed through gloppy mud and wet sand." Readers are directly addressed and invited to wonder about why some kinds of tracks are more common than others. A make-your-own fossil activity is appended to the text, but there is no glossary or pronunciation guide that might also help the intended reader. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)

School Library Journal

Gr 1-3-At last, here's a book that answers the question, "How did those footprints get there?" in an easy, enjoyable format. The author makes the connection for readers by describing walking in sand or mud and the resultant trail left behind. Diagrams give a simple visual of what happened to dinosaur footprints to make them harden and fossilize. A brief introduction to dinosaur groups (theropods, ornithopods) and examples of specific dinosaurs (Tyrannosaurus rex, allosaur, sauropod) and the footprints they left behind are accompanied by beautiful, soft sunset-colored illustrations. This appealing book concludes with instructions for making fossil footprints or handprints. A great choice for even the most discriminating dinophiles.-Colleen D. Bocka, Nathaniel Rochester Community School, Rochester, NY Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.