It’s 100 million years ago when Australia was joined to Antarctica. Our little dinosaur and her herd are searching for food. The past days had seen much rain but now the sun was shining high in the sky.
Suddenly there are screeches and warning calls sounding out. Lightning Claw is on the hunt. Our dinosaur bolts with the herd but becomes separated and trapped at the edge of a riverbank with nowhere to go. As Lightning Claw gets closer, they slip in the mud, falling into the river. Our dinosaur lies at the bottom of the riverbed, her bones eventually buried beneath the clay.
Sixty-six million years ago an asteroid hits Earth and ends the reign of dinosaurs. Millions of years pass until the Gamilaraay people come to live near where her bones lay.
Now, in a place called Lightening Ridge, Bob mines for opals. He drills in the rock and sees sparkling opals. But this is different, they seem shaped like horse’s hooves. When he shows scientists, they tell him they are dinosaur fossils. Bob displays the bones at the Australian Opal Centre. A palaeontologist visits the centre and knows these fossils are special. His team study them and discover it is our little dinosaur. She is an iguanodontid.
This book explains the journey of bones to become fossilised and identified. At the back of the book there is information on the extinction of dinosaurs and what happens when a miner finds an opalised fossil.
It’s a story well told, with a complex topic that’s easy to read and understand. I’m sure this book will inspire some new palaeontologists.
Reviewed by Emily Ross
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yvonne Mes
Yvonne Mes is an author and illustrator from Brisbane. She coordinates the Brisbane-based writers group, Write Links, and is a frequent speaker at schools and literary events.
Sylvia Morris is an illustrator with a background in mathematics, who combines her analytical and creative puzzle solving skills with her love of reading in her illustrations.
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