Grade 4-7-These titles will be welcomed for their clear expository style, accuracy, informative sidebars, time lines, maps, and glossaries. They are heavily illustrated with crisp full-color photos and a few paintings (ranging from mediocre to quite good). Patent's introductions evince her genuine interest in the topics and her travels to seek up-to-date data. Maiasaurs records the astounding find of a huge bone bed of fossils in osseous disarray and the efforts of paleontologist Jack Horner and his team to retrieve the fossils and interpret the lifestyle of these "Good Mother Lizards." Lascaux Cave echoes the author's awe and amazement as she discusses what is known, surmised, or guessed about the Magdalenian peoples who produced this burst of art in the form of engraved and colored bulls, bison, horses, and other animals that flow and posture along the cave's walls and ceilings. In Ice Man, Patent includes interpretive data from forensic scientists and paleoanthropologists who have been using cutting-edge technology to examine "Oetzi," the mummy discovered in 1991. Sidebars (of a page or better) include information on the development of agriculture, and how mummies are created by embalming procedures and natural causes. Data just predates Oetzi's removal from Innsbruck, Austria to Bolzano, Italy (after a prolonged geographical dispute) in January, 1998. Even if you own such titles as Patricia Lauber's Painters of the Caves (National Geographic, 1998), Don Lessem's The Iceman (Crown, 1994), or John Horner's Maia: A Dinosaur Grows Up (Museum of the Rockies, 1985), make room on your shelves for these books.
Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Science Books & Films, January/February 2000
Named a Best Book for Children 1999.
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