Digging Up Dinosaurs (original 1981; edition 1988)

Aliki uses her minutely detailed illustrations and her clean writing style to create an informational book about dinosaur fossils. This book is set apart from many other dinosaur books for children in that it focuses on the process of finding dinosaur bones and fossils, restoring them, and the scientific information that is gleaned from these archaeological discoveries. The book begins with a visually appealing tour through a museum, where our young narrator introduces us to several types of dinosaurs, such as the apatosaurus and tyrannosaurus rex. She then explains that she used to not know how such awesome skeletons made their way to the museum, but that she now knows; the remainder of the book shows us what she knows. A brief synopsis of what dinosaurs are, some history about who first discovered the remains of dinosaurs, a description of the team of people that work to unearth the fossils, and finally the complete process of finding the bones, digging them up and transporting them, cleaning them, studying them, and assembling them in a display for museums. A lot of information is compressed into few pages, but Aliki is clever in how she dispenses it: sometimes in small sidebars, sometimes in dialogue bubbles spoken by characters in the book, and sometimes through the text. She also uses vocabulary appropriate for an elementary school reader.

This book is an excellent nonfiction children's book. It can be difficult to impart detailed information without boring young readers, but Aliki uses her engaging pictures and a slow dispersal of details to hold their attention. The sidebars and dialogue can be ignored and just the text used for readers getting antsy, and for the curious child eager to learn more, they have plenty of facts to find by digging into every little detail. I also appreciated the fact that Aliki focused on a range of people; not just the scientists and archaeologists, but also the hard labor workers, the photographers, and the draftsmen. Her people are male and female, and multiple ethnicities. The pictures are not only chock full of details that support the text, they also provide humor. I like this book, and it is a great addition to a rounded library for children, that entertains and educates. ( )

This book describes many things about dinosaurs. It identifies the different dinosaurs, their names, and characteristics. The book also informs the reader about fossils, the people who hunt for them, and where they are found. Lastly it describes how the fossil hunters put the fossils together and put them in the museum.

This is a book about the history of dinosaurs. The book is a girl telling the process of how the dinosaurs are put up into a museum. It would be a great book for children to read to learn about about fossils. ( )

This book "Digging Up Dinosaurs" was very educational. It talked about were all the dinosaurs were when they were alive and it also talked about different types of dinosaurs. For example, it talked about the Tyrannosaurus Rex and how big its head was. The book also talked about when people started discovering the fossils and how archeologists dig up the findings. It is a great book for children to read. Its very educational.

This is a great book that tells students about dinosaurs and digging up their bones. This book also talks about the challenges of transfering the bones from the ground into the museum.