Publisher:Harbour Publishing, 2018
Edition:First edition
ISBN: 9781550178210
Pages: 144
Includes glossary, index
This book is a great introduction to the world of palaeontology for students, as well as their parents. Dr. Persons spent a great deal of time crafting the text to make it enjoyable to read, and I believe it will delight anybody who picks it up.
The book covers a wealth of topics in an easy to read format, with lots of illustrations (by Dr. Julius Csotonyi) and photographs which help to explain the various topics and concepts. Some of the topics covered include why Alberta is such a perfect place for palaeontology, how fossils are found, how the age of the fossils is determined, how evolution works, how fossils are safely extracted and prepared, and much more.
Interspersed throughout the book he also gives brief biographies of some of the palaeontologists that have worked with him in the Badlands and other parts of Alberta such as Drs. Philip Currie, Angelica Torices, Victoria Arbour, Eric Snively, Michael Burns, and Ryan McKellar. Readers also get to read about various dig sites and find out what is so special about them. Another section examines the various dinosaur species that were common, and are typically found in the Badlands, and other parts of Alberta.
This isn't a large book, but it would be a valuable one for any school library to have in their collection as todays elementary and junior high students are tomorrow's palaeontologists. The final section of the book details what a current students needs to know, and what's they'll need to specialize in if they want to be a palaeontologist.
