This volume explains to younger readers how fossils are formed and what they reveal about the past.

Reviews

K-Gr 3 --In this revised edition, Aliki has revamped the previous four-color edition with lively full-color illustrations, also adding the pointed, conversational observations of children as they make discoveries along with readers. In clear, precise language, she explains how dinosaur tracks are cast in mud, how insects trapped in sticky tree sap harden into amber, and how fossils of tropical plants are found in very cold places. The children populating these pages are boys and girls of every color, on foot or in wheelchair, all of them active observers with scientific curiosities; they are apparently making these discoveries in a museum, marveling and enjoying the bits of history cast in stone. The book closes with a suggestion for creating a one-minute fossil by making a clay imprint of a hand, letting it dry, and burying it for someone to find a million years from now. School and public libraries will want to replace the old edition with this one. --Denia Lewis Hester, Dewey School, Evanston, IL