Dinosaur Eggs (Penguin Young Readers, Level 3)

A group of fossil hunters ride along in a jeep in search of fossils of birds from dinosaur times. When they first started looking around they found some rocks about the size of a grapefruit. Upon further inspection these turned out to be dinosaur eggs. " For fossil hunters, this was like striking gold. Some of these eggs still had baby dinosaurs inside them!" Because these babies had never hatched they turned into fossils, and some even had skin. The illustrations show the progression of the eggs with the skulls and bones inside. The illustrations are vibrant with the eyes on these dinosaurs looking mean while others scurried away. The scientists discovered that the grown-up titanosaurs had bony plates in their skin, similar to a crocodile, while the baby dinosaurs did not have these. Through out the story of these fossil hunters in Dinosaur Eggs are questions for children to ponder and explore further within the pages. " So, why didn't these babies hatch? What happened at the nesting ground?" This sparks the imagination in my son and offers him the chance to respond when reading along with various thoughts and ideas. The series is entitled, All Aboard Reading, this being a level two book. The level two has a smaller text than the previous level with the sentences broken down in an easy to read fashion. For any dinosaur enthusiast this would be worth the purchase so they can master the art of reading on an interesting subject. Each page covers roughly one or two sentences along with the illustrations that were prepared by Pamela Johnson. The fossil hunters are shown in the early pages with the bulk of the illustrations being the background settings with the dinosaurs.

"Dinosaur Eggs," by Jennifer Dussling, is an educational text directed towards readers from grades 1 to 3. The book follows a group of fossil hunters on a quest in which they discover fossilized dinosaur eggs. The text also goes back in time to depict the lives of dinosaurs, and to show how their eggs became fossilized.Dussling's easy-to-read text is nicely complemented by Pamela Johnson's illustrations. Although I found Johnson's dinosaurs to be a little too "cartoony" looking at times, her illustrations are generally effective, and make good use of a lot of soothing earth tones. Overall, a good choice for young readers with an interest in dinosaurs.