McMullan describes the history of dinosaur hunters, the work of paleontologists, and a handful of important discoveries in this readable chapter book. The engaging text includes plenty of interesting information, but the format does little to showcase the writing, and the watercolor illustrations do not pull ancient and contemporary material together either thematically or stylistically.

Gr 2-4-- This easy reader is a quick introduction to paleontological history, covering general information on how fossils are formed and found, who discovered them, and some of the newer dinosaur theories deduced from these theories. Anecdotes about paleontologists' eccentricities and dinosaurs' quirks keep the text lively, without overwhelming readers with unnecessary details. Information about dinosaurs is up-to-date, and, despite standard textbook illustrations, the book provides a nice alternative to Parish's Dinosaur Time (Harper, 1974) or Milton's Dinosaur Days (Random, 1985). --Cathryn A. Camper, Minneapolis Public Library