Books in Discoveries in Palaeontology series

A picture is worth a thousand words; the 10 photos in this book, along with the accompanying descriptive detailed drawings, make this a very informative book for children. There has never been a photographer of buildings like Yoshio Komatsu. He has travelled extensively around the world for 25 years, photographing hand-built homes. Photos from Mongolia, China,, Indonesia, India, Romania, Tunisia, Spain, Togo, Senegal, and Bolivia. Each structure is beautifully photographed, and then colorfully rendered in pen and wash, with many descriptive captions explaining the everyday life of children and families in these homes.

Pachyrhinosaurus follows two separate stories: the discovery of Pachyrhinosaurus fossils in northwestern Alberta and the sequence of events leading to this dinosaur’s abrupt demise 76 million years ago. Pachyrhinosaurus, one of the rarest, least understood horned dinosaurs, lived during the late Cretaceous Period at the end of the 150-million-year Age of Dinosaurs. Pachyrhinosaurus was different in a striking way from other dinosaurs. Instead of the sweeping lances found on the faces of Triceratops and Centrosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus had gnarly platforms of bone covering its nose and eyebrows. These bony fossil shields gave the dinosaur its name, which means "thicknose reptile."

Jillian Nelson, 11 years old and newly moved to Vancouver, Canada has struck upon an ingenious solution to find a friend: Tanya, a Belarus girl exposed to Chernobyl radiation will stay with the Nelsons on a summer exchange. But language barriers, poor health and culture shock strain the nascent friendship and Jillian's jealousy and selfishness threaten to alienate Tanya in the very place she is meant to feel safe. Can Jillian put aside her anger and earn the friendship she has wished for? With a glossary of Russian words and maps, this debut novel both inspires and instructs.

Some 75 million years ago, one dinosaur ended its life. The dinosaur was an Albertosaurus -- distant cousin to the ferocious, meat-eating predator Tyrannosaurus Rex. But its death was also a beginning -- the start of its transformation into a fossil, which lay undiscovered for millennia until the forces of erosion brought the young dinosaur, once again, to light.

Eons ago, a bird-mimic dinosaur escaped the jaws of the terrifying predator Albertosaurus, but at the cost of serious injury and, ultimately, its life. Seventy-five million years later, scientists discovered the Ornithomimus' well-hidden, complete articulated skeleton in the badlands of Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park -- conclusive evidence that this little-studied family of dinosaurs is closely related to modern birds.

When 14-year-old James boards the steamship Valencia in San Francisco's harbor in 1906, he knows his nightmares are omens of an ill-fated passage. Apprehensively, he explores the ship with Alex, a fellow traveler who introduces him to oblivious passengers and crew. When a violent storm and thick fog reduce the navigators to dead reckoning, James braces himself for the worst. The vessel runs aground in the Juan de Fuca Strait, 50 yards from shore, in seas too rocky for rescue. While victims cling to the masts in the gale, the boys board the last lifeboat ... Only 20 people survive and over 200 passengers and crew are killed-a sea disaster as horrible as the sinking of the Titanic-as the Valencia sinks to its watery grave off what is now the West Coast Trail.