Summary

This highly praised series of books has been in print since the 1950s (launched originally by Franklin Watts himself). Today's First Books provide engaging, in-depth introductions to subjects in all areas of the middle-grade curriculum, including science, social studies, and the arts.

Illustrated with color and historical photography and art, each First Book is chaptered, includes an index, a for-further-reading list and, where appropriate, a glossary and original maps.

Booklist Review

Gr. 4^-6. This work spans a tidy chunk of time--about 500 million years--as it describes animal fossils from trilobites to mammals. A helpful analogy of making a sandwich helps to explain the formation of animal fossils as they are sandwiched between mud and sand. Generous attention is given to shelled animals, followed by the dinosaurs of the Mesozoic era. The color photographs and drawings if not good are serviceable. Readers can see how the fossils tell valuable stories about animals' lives and deaths and, more important, about the earth's history. This, too, contains a glossary and lists of additional readings and Web sites. --Denia Hester

School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-6-A brief but attractive overview. An introductory chapter defines terms such as sedimentary rock, relative time vs. absolute age, and the different kinds of fossils. Other chapters provide examples of remains from the Paleozoic to the Cenozoic eras and mention early ocean animals, some of the newer dinosaur discoveries, and ancient mammals. In covering the dinosaur finds, the author defines and describes the creature and notes where the fossils were discovered (but not always when), and why the discovery is important. The somewhat dry text is accompanied by above-average full-color photographs. An adequate, current bibliography with Internet resources is included.-Kathryn Kosiorek, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.