We received unbound copies of several children's books at TLA (I actually ended up with 2 copies of this title [giving one to HAWL Library and planning to actually bind one]). This is a beautiful and well written biography of Earl Douglas. A treasure.

FROM AMAZON: Earl Douglass was a teenager when he first heard about the Bone Wars―the frenzied race between paleontologists to unearth and classify dinosaur fossils―and he remained fascinated with these prehistoric giants for the rest of his life. As a geologist and botanist working at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Douglass had a hunch that the vast untouched rock strata in northeastern Utah just may have been a haven for Jurassic fossil beds. In 1908, he set out by mule team to the Uinta Basin to dig and discover. Find me "something big," Andrew Carnegie instructed.

Little did Carnegie know exactly how well Douglass would heed those words. Sixteen years and 350 tons of fossils later, Earl Douglass emerged as one of the most prolific and successful dinosaur hunters of his time.

Using entries directly from Douglass's diary along with her own evocative storytelling and artwork, acclaimed author and illustrator Deborah Kogan Ray paints the life of this adventurous bone hunter in memorable detail. ( )

This is a cool book about the finding the great cache of bones out in Utah. It's a nice story about real life, history and the work of one man who worked to not only further the study of dinosaurs, but also preserve them. Great fun read! ( )

Genre: Historical

Summary: This book depicts the story of Earl Douglass and his quest for finding dinosaur skeletons. It shares when and how the "Bone Wars" got started and then it also mentions various other paleontologists.

Review: While this is a historical story, I like how the book includes labeled diagrams of bones, a glossary of terms, an annotated list of various types of dinosaurs, the tools used for excavating,
and various charts throughout. This increases the science content while still remaining an excellent read-aloud.

This would be a great book to teach about nonfiction. It includes a snip bits of famous historical people, maps, Glossary, Bibliography, and an authors note. I think that this book was more in depth than I have seen from a picture book. Writing on each page is thick and full of knowledge. This book goes into Andrew Carnegie's place in exhibiting fossils and the different eras as well as different fossils found today in shells. It also talks about when fossils were first found and how they were discovered. Even the tools used were talked about in this book. I think this book could work for late third grade through fifth graders.

This beautifully illustrated book retells the story of how the United States became a center for dinosaur excavation. This story also retells the life of the dinosaur hunter named Earl Douglas, Earl Douglas was told by Andrew Carnegie to find him "something big". Earl Douglas definitely made Carnegie proud by finding over 350 fossils by the end of his life. I thoroughly enjoyed the way that Deborah Kogan Ray beautifully paints the narrative and art to retell Earl Douglas' life. I would recommend this book as a mentor text for narratives. Second and third graders would most likely benefit the most from this book.