Gr 1-3-Beginning with a pronunciation guide for the names of various dinosaurs, this book describes what probably happened to those reptiles 65 million years ago, when a comet or an asteroid most likely slammed into the Earth in the area of the Yucat n Peninsula. Rather than delivering a strict factual narrative, Brown focuses on some individual creatures, bringing readers closer to the scene. She tells how the dinosaurs would have been feeding and then suddenly destroyed by heat, falling rock, or tidal waves during the day of impact. Those not immediately killed would have starved following the death of their prey or plant foods. The book ends with the rise of small mammals that had hidden underground, escaping the dinosaurs' fate. Second graders will be able to read this book independently, and with its expressive, fairly naturalistic illustrations, younger children will find that it answers the question of how the dinosaurs became extinct. An author's note provides additional material.-Lynda Ritterman, Atco Elementary School, Waterford, NJ Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

It was not a good day for the dinosaurs when an asteroid hit Earth. It's a good one for emergent readers, however, who get to relish the gruesome--yet factually accurate and realistic--death and destruction. Tyrannosaurus is incinerated, for example, and others are felled by burning rocks. The color illustrations pull no punches in matching the heightened drama of the text.

Paleontologist Brown presents developing readers with a vividly imagined recreation of an asteroid impact and its immediate and subsequent effects on the dinosaurs. She sets up her scenario with an introductory, "It may have happened like this . . . " and follows with action-filled narration that finds a T. rex peacefully chowing down on an Edmontosaurus while behind him a "strange new light" appears in the sky. After immediately incinerating the giant carnivore, the asteroid's wave of destruction moves outward, mowing down Triceratops and Alamosaurus with equal abandon. Although they are not killed in the initial impact, a herd of Parasaurolophuses, who hide in caves in the far north, slowly starve to death upon reemerging into a blasted world. Clearly, there's more than enough violence and destruction to delight the most jaded eight-year-old, all related in the simple and forthright vocabulary and syntax of an I Can Read! entry. Wilson's illustrations add stripes and other splashes of color to the dinosaurs' hides, as well as expressions of alarm to their faces, the scenes of destruction appropriately garish and full of motion. Sure to find its audience. (author's note, pronunciation guide) (Easy reader/nonfiction. 6-9)