From Library Journal
Grade 5-9-Norell and Dingus record a fascinating story spanning 70 years in Gobi paleontological exploration. Their crisp, readable (and slightly demanding) text charts early expeditions to the Flaming Cliffs under the direction of that Indiana Jones of paleontology, Roy Chapman Andrews, and their own 1993 expedition to Ukhaa Tolgod, where the find of a partial fossil of an Oviraptor still crouching over its nest of eggs in a protective parenting posture after 70 million years reversed the previously held theory that had given this creature its cognomen. The book goes on to discuss the impact of this discovery on current concepts of dinosaur/bird relationships. Sidebars (some quite lengthy) offer a geological/evolutionary time line, a discussion of dating fossils and how they are discovered and retrieved in the field, and information about how to become a paleontologist. A map of Mongolia and color and black-and-white photos and drawings are carefully placed to correspond with the text. Offer this veritable feast for the mind to readers who have enjoyed J. Lynett Gillette's The Search for Seismosaurus (Dial, 1994), John Horner's Digging Up Tyrannosaurus Rex (Crown, 1992), Dingus and Norell's Searching for Velociraptor (HarperCollins, 1996), and Margery Facklam's Tracking Dinosaurs in the Gobi (21st Century, 1997).
Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Card catalog description
Discusses how the authors became paleontologists and describes their expeditions to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and the important fossils they found there.