While dinosaur bones are already interesting, a historic fight between two men over ancient bones grabs even more attention.

O.C. Marsh and Edward Cope were two lead paleontologists around 1860, and they happened to become good friends. Each ones' new discoveries made the other one cheer...until one of them made a mistake while puzzling the latest bones together. What was once friendship turned into a determined race, each one trying to discover more new dinosaurs than the other. But the surprise can be found in who truly won their ruthless competition.

These pages prove that history isn't boring...but of course, dinosaur bones already will win more than a few readers over. Beginning with the warmth of an inspiring and fun friendship, this book launches into the interesting relationship between two men as they hunted for bones, discovered many new locations, and named more than a couple of their finds. While this doesn't go into depth about dinosaur facts or excavation, it does give a general idea about what happened when bones were discovered, what dinosaurs these men found and named (brontosaurus, stegosaurus, etc), and a glimpse at the competition, which surrounded these finds. It also demonstrates how mistakes were made when piecing these bones together.

The author does a great job at keeping the text and story interesting. Readers will have no problem identifying with the frustration when friendships sour, and they will wonder and shake their heads (and even giggle) at the nonsense the two caused as they tried to out-do each other. The ending does bring in a message about these types of fights (very subtly), but more importantly, carries an uplifting surprise.

As if the story itself wasn't well written for the age group (and older readers), the illustrations will have young dinosaur fans gazing at the pages. These aren't done in great detail but are easy to identify. Plus, the couple mistakes made by the men will have dinosaur fans smiling and show that these discoveries weren't always easy. I received an ARC and found this more interesting than I even thought it'd be. ( )