Customer Reviews

Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs: A Photobiography of Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews (Photobiographies)

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Real-life is usually so much more interesting than the movies, and Ann Bausum's wonderful photobiography of Roy Chapman Andrews - Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs - will be ample evidence of this to any young Indiana Jones fan. Roy Chapman Andrews [1884-1960] was an explorer and is best known for the Central Asiatic Expeditions, which he led on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History and during which the first dinosaur eggs and nests were found. He is also a probable model for the character of Indiana Jones. Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs puts its main focus on Andrew's life from his employment with the AMNH through to the expeditions to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The book is a well-done combination of photographs, text, and block quotes. The text is well-written and exciting [even for an older person like me], and the pictures help the reader to put themselves into the story. Did Roy Chapman Andrews wear a cool looking hat? [YES!] Did Roy Chapman Andrews dislike snakes and did he have a run-in with them on one of the expeditions? [YES!] I recommend this book to any young person of late elementary age who is interested in exploration and paleontology.

First, potential buyers should know that this book is aimed at younger readers. The text is a bit short and slanted and skips some details that an adult would wish to know.
For instance, Andrews planned five expeditions from 1922-1926. Instead he ran expeditions in 1922,1923, 1925, 1928 and 19289 if I recall correctly. There were three different years when the Chinese authorities decided to interfere with his plans, at least once in part due to Andrews' action of auctioning off a dinosaur egg to the highest bidder in New York City as a fund raising / publicity stunt, an action that made the Chinese public question if he was interested in these fossils for science of for profit. This aspect of the story is almost untouched upon in this book.
Another reviewer criticized the treatment of Granger in this book. Make no doubt about it, this book most certainly portrays Roy Chapman Andrews as a hero. And there's probably nothing wrong with that, but please understand you are not buying a definitive biography of Chapman for adults when you purchase this book.
So why four stars? Why praise the book? The photographs. This book is chock full of incredible, large, nice reproductions of fascinating photos of the expedition from the time. All in black and white but all incredible. "Motocars" carrying paleontologist through the desert with the American flag out front, large camel caravans with visible spare tires for the cars, camps, nomads, creatures, bones, the Great Wall of China as the expedition passes. Uncoubtedly some were posed, but the images and the "feel" of the evocative photos is incredible. I'd recommend that any adult interested in these expeditions buy this book just for the pictures.

To answer some of Ann Bausum's questions:

-- Who discovered Velociraptor? Answer: Walter Granger.

-- Who discovered that dinosaurs lay eggs? Answer: Walter Granger found a dinosaur eggshell fragment at Flaming Cliffs on September 2, 1922. George Olsen found the first whole eggs there a year later on July 10, 1923. However, paleontologists had theorized for years that dinosaurs laid eggs. All that was needed was proof. Granger and Olsen supplied that. Andrews did not attend Olsen's discovery. Granger did.

-- Who helped prove that mammals lived in the age of dinosaurs? Answer: Walter Granger, and his western, Chinese and Mongolian assistants in the field.

These are the correct answers, but you won't find them in this book. This Andrews hagiography is widely off base. The scientific fieldwork of the Central Asiatic Expeditions was coordinated by Walter Granger who was the Expedition's chief paleontologist and second-in-command. Andrews, by his own admission in his own publications, was not a paleontologist or a competent fossil collector.