Carrie Clickard

Nancy Carpenter

In this rhyming, hilarious romp about a little-known facet of American history, Thomas Jefferson tries to disprove a French theory that those in the New World are puny and wussy by going in search of mammoth bones.

In the New World called America big changes were a’brewing.
Independence was declared with bold hurrahs and ballyhooing!

The French feel threatened by America’s new freedom and confidence, as embodied by Count Buffon who claims that the “New World was a chilly, swampy place, filled with puny, scrawny creatures, every species, breed, and race.” Thomas Jefferson won’t stand his young country being insulted, so he sets out to prove Count Buffon wrong. He sends people across the country in search of an animal or animal bones to prove that creatures in the United States are big and strong and worthy.

Hilarious, energetic, and a delight to read aloud, this book shines a light on this little-known slice of American history. Included in the back matter are an author’s note, who’s who and what’s what from American history, bibliography, and further reading.

Thomas Jefferson and the Mammoth Hunt

Linda Skeers

Marta Alvarez Miguens

female scientists

paleontology

A beautifully illustrated picture book biography of Mary Anning that will enlighten children about the discovery of the dinosaurs and the importance of female scientists, perfect for fans of The Girl Who Thought in Pictures

Mary Anning loved scouring the beach near her home in England for shells and fossils. She fearlessly climbed over crumbling cliffs and rocky peaks, searching for new specimens. One day, something caught Mary’s eye.

Bones. Dinosaur Bones.

Mary’s discoveries rocked the world of science and helped create a brand-new field of study: paleontology. But many people believed women couldn’t be scientists, so Mary wasn’t given the credit she deserved. Nevertheless, Mary kept looking and learning more, making discoveries that reshaped scientific beliefs about the natural world.

Educational backmatter includes a timeline of Mary Anning’s life and lots of fantastic fossil facts!

Dinosaur Lady

Sherri Duskey Rinker

Matt Myers

Sniff! Sniff-sniff!  

I smell a bone. A bone that’s BIG.  

I’ll get it out, I’ll dig and dig.  

A big, BIG bone! I know it’s there!  

It will take work, but I don’t care!  

Tiny may be a small dog, but don’t let that fool you. He’s a pooch with power who knows what he wants. And he’s going for it. But oh, those pesky pessimists – they’re trying to rain on Tiny’s dig-parade!  

Thank goodness for one special boy who believes in Tiny, because in the end, this dog’s grit proves that he’s the little pup who could… dig up some giant surprises!

Tiny and the Big Dig

Megan McDonald

Erwin Madrid

Surprises are in store as Stink excavates his backyard in search of a relic from an extinct beast – and Judy lends him a little sleight of hand. Mega-chomp! Stink wants to make the find of the century. He’s on a dig, dig, digging quest in his backyard to find a tooth from a saber-toothed cat, otherwise known as a Smilodon. Why not? Two kids in Michigan found a mastodon bone in a backyard stream, and a girl in Great Britain found a pterosaur bone. It could happen! But Judy thinks the chances of finding a saber-toothed anything in the Moody backyard are one in a gazillion million. Will Stink make a discovery before their whole backyard caves in? Just right for newly independent readers, this latest story from Megan McDonald is sure to leave Moody fans with smiles as wide as a Smilodon’s.

Searching for Stinkodon

Bob Barner

With a lively rhyming text and vibrant paper collage illustrations, author-artist Bob Barner shakes the dust off the dinosaur bones found in museums and reminds us that they once belonged to living, breathing creatures. Filled with fun dinosaur facts (a T. Rex skull can weigh up to 750 pounds!) and an informational “Dinometer,” Dinosaur Bones is sure to make young dinosaur enthusiasts roar with delight.

Dinosaur Bones

Tracey Fern

Boris Kulikov

Documents the work of an early 20th-century paleontologist, named after the famous circus icon by his ambitious parents, who grew up to work for the American Museum of Natural History and discovered the first documented skeletons of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and other noteworthy species. By the author of Pippo the Fool.

Barnum's Bones

Dr. Laura Gehl

Daniel Wiseman

Baby Scientist is an adorable board book series that brings fun, accessible science concepts to baby’s world using simple language, recognizable settings, and vibrant art. Read them all with your baby scientist!

Baby Paleontologist digs for fossils. With his pickax and brush, he discovers plants and animals that lived long, long ago.

What stories do fossils tell?

What did dinosaurs look like?

Find out with Baby Paleontologist!

Don’t miss the other books in this series, including Baby Oceanographer, Baby Astronaut, and Baby Botanist!

Baby Paleontologist

Toni Buzzeo

Diana Sudyka

From a very young age, Sue Hendrickson was meant to find things: lost coins, perfume bottles, even hidden treasure. Her endless curiosity eventually led to her career in diving and paleontology, where she would continue to find things big and small. In 1990, at a dig in South Dakota, Sue made her biggest discovery to date: Sue the T. rex, the largest and most complete T. rex skeleton ever unearthed. Named in Sue’s honor, Sue the T. rex would be placed on permanent exhibition at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. When Sue Found Sue inspires readers to take a closer look at the world around them and to never lose their brave, adventurous spirits.

When Sue Found Sue

April Jones Prince

Bob Kolar

Meet the long-necks, flyers, boneheads, duckbills, swimmers, armored, horned, plated, and sharp-toothed creatures of prehistoric times in this oversized board book with 101 creatures for kids to name and sound out! With bite-size information that’s perfect for this young age, phonetic spellings of each creature, and an interactive refrain, the first book in this young nonfiction series is sure to be a hit!

101 Dinosaurs

Dennis Nolan

Dinosaurs disappeared completely from the Earth many, many years ago…or did they? Millions of years ago, dinosaurs roamed the shores of Mesozoic seas. They lay eggs in the shade of ginkgo trees, and as time went on, dinosaurs grew, and grew, and grew. There were so many different species of dinosaurs. Large, monstrous, and fearsome, they ruled the earth. Until gradually, there were no dinosaurs left. But they didn’t disappear completely. Some dinosaurs had feathers, which grew and grew…until all through the skies were hundreds of species of birds, which flew and flew. From the bestselling creator of Dinosaur Dream Dennis Nolan comes a poetic nonfiction picture book about how dinosaurs evolved into birds.

Dinosaur Feathers

Editors of Silver Dolphin Books

Lift the flaps and spin the wheel to learn about dinosaurs!

Which dinosaur had a spiky tail? How big was a T. rex tooth? Learn the answers to these questions and more in First Facts and Flaps: Giant Dinosaurs! This book introduces youngsters to the world of dinosaurs with flaps to lift, a wheel to turn, and a giant foldout. With more than 30 flaps to lift, learning about dinosaurs has never been so much fun!

Giant Dinosaurs

Mary Pope Osborne

Sal Murdocca

The Ice Age is very cool…for two kids in bathing suits! Jack and Annie nearly freeze when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to the time of cave people and woolly mammoths. But nothing can stop them from having another wild adventure—not even a saber-toothed tiger!

Sunset of the Sabertooth

Jason Chin

Grand Canyon

Rivers wind through earth, cutting down and eroding the soil for millions of years, creating a cavity in the ground 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, and more than a mile deep known as the Grand Canyon. Home to an astonishing variety of plants and animals that have lived and evolved within its walls for millennia, the Grand Canyon is much more than just a hole in the ground. Follow a father and daughter as they make their way through the cavernous wonder, discovering life both present and past. Weave in and out of time as perfectly placed die cuts show you that a fossil today was a creature much long ago, perhaps in a completely different environment. Complete with a spectacular double gatefold, an intricate map and extensive back matter.

S.J. King

Travel back in time and discover facts you never knew about dinosaurs and prehistoric life in this fourth installment of The Secret Explorers. This group of brilliant kids comes together from all four corners of the globe to fix problems, solve mysteries, and gather knowledge all over the planet - and beyond. Whenever their help is needed, a special sign will appear on a door. They step through to the Exploration Station and receive their mission… In The Secret Explorers and the Jurassic Rescue, dinosaur expert Tamiko and geology expert Cheng travels back to the age of the dinosaurs in an effort to rescue a dinosaur egg from destruction. However, to save the egg, the Secret Explorers first have to use all their courage and skills to outsmart a fierce Allosaurus, rescue a baby Stegosaurus, and find a way to attract an Archaeopteryx. Tamiko and Cheng soon find that to succeed, they need to come up with some unusual solutions…Packed with fun illustrations and facts about dinosaurs, fossils, and why modern birds are dinosaurs, this thrilling adventure is perfect for young readers. Also available as an audiobook, narrated by actor Alfred Enoch.

The Secret Explorers and the Jurassic Rescue

Yuval Zommer

A little dog makes a big discovery . . . 

Scruff the dog is a stray who just loves to dig. It doesn’t make him the most popular dog in town. But when he sniffs out a pile of old bones, he gets all the neighborhood dogs to help him. They uncover not one, not two, not three . . . but 100 bones and make the most exciting dinosaur discovery of all time! Scruff’s find wins him new friends and a new home. A heartwarming story about an underdog who comes out on top.

One Hundred Bones

Anna Grossnickle Hines

Curious George loves dinosaurs, so he”s excited tovisit a dig to look for real dinosaur bones. Will thecurious little monkey help make a big discovery? The paperback edition of this new adventure contains aword jumble as well as finger puppets for children tophotocopy, color, and cut out.

Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery

Audrey Sauble

What shape is a rock?

How do rocks change?

And does a rock ever look like a rose?

Learn about different kinds of rocks in this brand new book for kids who love to explore nature!

This nonfiction picture book explores different shapes that rocks can be-flat rocks, round rocks, sharp rocks, and even hexagon-shaped rocks-while explaining how rocks change over time.

It’s a fun, engaging, and scientifically entertaining book, sure to delight rockhounds, young and old.

At the end of this book, you will find additional information about rocks, including a glossary and a scavenger hunt.

Can a Rock Grow? is ideal for students from kindergarten through early elementary, ages 4-8. It’s also a fun introduction to the rock cycle or to the second-grade Next Gen Science Standards for earth science.

Can a Rock Grow?

Annie Barrows

Sophie Blackall

World-record fever grips the second grade, and soon Ivy and Bean are trying to set their own record by becoming the youngest people to have ever discovered a dinosaur. But how hard is it to find one?

Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record

Elizabeth Shreeve

Frann Preston-Gannon

Graceful, succinct prose and engaging illustrations trace the evolution of life on Earth out of the blue and back again. Clear and inviting nonfiction prose, vetted by scientists–together with lively illustrations and a time line–narrate how life on Earth emerged “out of the blue.” It began in the vast, empty sea when Earth was young. Single-celled microbes too small to see held the promise of all life-forms to come. Those microbes survived billions of years in restless seas until they began to change, to convert sunlight into energy, to produce oxygen until one day–Gulp!–one cell swallowed another, and the race was on. Learn how and why creatures began to emerge from the deep–from the Cambrian Explosion to crustaceans, mollusks to fishes, giant reptiles to the rise of mammals–and how they compare to the animals we know today, in a lively and accessible outing into the prehistoric past that boils a complex subject down to its lyrical essence.

Out of the Blue: How Animals Evolved from Prehistoric Seas

Geronimo Stilton

Geronimo Stilton’s ancient ancestor Geronimo Stiltonoot is back in another prehistoric adventure!A visiting rodent has arrived in Old Mouse City with astounding news. On his recent journey to a cold, distant land, he spotted a mountain . . . moving! Holey cheese! Geronimo Stiltonoot sets off on a trip to the ice and snow to find out what lies behind this mystery. It’s a fur-raising expedition!

The Fast and the Frozen

The Aldens are visiting a real dinosaur dig in Montana, in an area full of fossils and caves! But the bones of a rare dinosaur have gone missing, and when the children begin to search for clues they hear strange noises in the caves and discover mysterious tracks! Why are bones disappearing? And could there be a real-life dinosaur on the loose?

The Mystery of the Stolen Dinosaur Bones

Stephen Krensky

Buster's Dino Dilemma

Enter the world of Geronimo Stilton, where another funny adventure is always right around the corner. Each book is a fast-paced adventure with lively art and a unique format kids 7-10 will love.Tuslaarai! Tuslaarai! That’s Mongolian for Help! and holey cheese did I need some! I was lost in the Gobi Desert, looking for a hidden treasure. So far, all I had found were sandstorms, camels, and giant dinosaur bones? Rat-munching rattlesnakes - how do I get myself into these situations?

Valley of the Giant Skeletons

Alexandra Bye

For fans of Shark Lady and from the New York Times bestselling illustrator of Dr. Fauci comes the incredible true story of a girl who discovered dinosaur bones in her own backyard and, after years of persistence, helped uncover one of the most exciting paleontological discoveries of our time. There’s an extraordinary secret hidden just beneath Ruth Mason’s feet. The year is 1905, and Ruth is a prairie girl living in South Dakota. She has no way of knowing that millions of years ago, her family farm was once home to scores of dinosaurs. Until one day, when Ruth starts finding clues to the past: strange rocks and rubble scattered all across her land. They’re dinosaur fossils–but she doesn’t know that yet, either. It will take many years of collecting these clues, and many, many questions, but Ruth’s curiosity will one day help uncover thousands of fossils all across her land. New York Times bestselling illustrator Alexandra Bye’s vibrant illustrations bring to life this inspiring and exciting debut picture book from award-winning journalist Julia Lyon.

A Dinosaur Named Ruth: How Ruth Mason Discovered Fossils in Her Own Backyard

When the museum’s visitors are gone for the day, it’s time for the kittens to come out and play! This new chapter book series by best-selling author Holly Webb is inspired by tales of real-life museum cats and follows the after-hours adventures of the Museum Kittens. Includes black-and-white illustrations throughout. One stormy night, a little black kitten named Peter appears on the museum steps. Tabby cat Tasha is delighted to show Peter the museum’s hallways and secret corners, but her siblings, Bianca and Boris, aren’t as happy to welcome the new arrival. Determined to prove that Peter is just as much of a museum kitten as the others, Tasha takes him on a hunt for rats. When there’s a mishap in the Dinosaur Gallery, all of the kittens must work together to fix the situation. Can they do it? In this new series from best-selling author, Holly Webb, the Museum Kittens are brave, clever, and never more than a whisker away from adventure! When the museum’s visitors are gone for the day, it’s time for the kittens to come out and play!

The Midnight Visitor

While visiting the museum with Jimmy’s class, Curious George can’t resist climbing onto one of the exhibits. The director of the museum isn’t very happy about that, but George sure knows how to make a field trip interesting!

Curious George and the Dinosaur

Jacqueline Jules

Dave Roman

Who can blame Pluto for being peeved after scientists unceremoniously decide he is no longer a planet? Looking for answers, Pluto heads to the science museum! Kids will take a scientific journey side-by- side with Pluto, as he asks what exactly scientists are interested in. Presented in a graphic novel-inspired format Pluto Is Peeved! transforms the vast universe into a fun and informative introduction to astronomy and the scientific method.

Pluto is Peeved!

With four books out and terrific Book Club sales success, Ready, Freddy! is an enormously popular school series by an elementary school teacher who has seen it all. Get to know Freddy Thresher, the first grade shark expert with an uncanny knack for mischief. Join Freddy in this adventure as he schemes and scrimps, trying to earn enough money to buy an awesome fossilized shark tooth. Packed with humor, illustrations, and even factual information about sharks, the Ready, Freddy! series is perfect for the chapter book reader.

Shark Tooth Tale

Little Bee Books

Introducing another book in the LITTLE EXPLORERS series, an interactive nonfiction series for curious youngsters. With more than 30 flaps, DINOSAURS provides little ones with hands-on fun! DINOSAURS is a lively introduction to all types of prehistoric dinos. Children can lift the flaps to learn about these amazing dinosaurs and the environments they used to live in, and they will be amazed as they find out all about the biggest, fastest, and most ferocious dinosaurs, and much, much more. This book features over 30 sturdy flaps to lift, along with charming, kid-friendly artwork that introduces new concepts and vocabulary in a simple and accessible way.

Little Explorers: Dinosaurs

Suzanne Crowley

After her grandfather died from a heart attack while driving his tractor on Solace Hill, twelve-year-old Esme’s been inextricably drawn to that spot, although her grandmother warns her to stay away. But when she follows her little brother, Bo, and her dog, Old Jack, up the hill while chasing fireflies, she makes an incredible discovery—dinosaur bones peeking out from underneath the abandoned tractor.

The bones must be a message from her grandfather, a connection from beyond the grave. But when word gets out that the farm is hiding something valuable, reporters, researchers, and neighbors arrive in droves. Esme struggles to understand who has her best interests at heart, especially as the memory of her grandfather begins to slip away.

Full of friendship and adventure, and featuring a palpable Texas setting, Finding Esme is a moving and heartfelt story about family, friendship, and learning to deal with loss.

From acclaimed author Suzanne Crowley, this engaging adventure set on a Texas peach farm is just right for fans of Rebecca Stead and Ann M. Martin.

Finding Esme

Dan Gutman

Jim Paillot

Think fast with A.J. and Andrea from My Weird School!

Did you know that the biggest dinosaur was probably six stories high and half a football field long? Did you know that Utah is the only place in the world where it’s legal to hunt dinosaurs?!

Learn more weird-but-true dinosaur facts with A.J. and Andrea from Dan Gutman’s bestselling My Weird School series. This all-new series of nonfiction books features hundreds of hysterical facts, plus lots of photos and illustrations.

Whether you’re a kid who wants to learn more about dinosaurs or simply someone who wants to know the name for fossilized dinosaur poop, this is the book for you!

With more than 12 million books sold, the My Weird School series really gets kids reading!

My Weird School Fast Facts: Dinosaurs, Dodos, and Woolly Mammoths

Abby Howard

“Determined to show Ronnie just how interesting prehistoric life was BEFORE the age of the dinosaurs, Miss Lernin takes her back in time to the six parts of the Paleozoic era to study the earliest lifeforms on Earth, starting with the rise of the vertebrates”–]cProvided by publisher.

Ocean Renegades!

Ronnie is just a normal fifth-grader trying to pass her science class’s impossible quiz on the history of dinosaurs . . . until she happens upon her neighbor–Ms. Lernin–a retired paleontologist. With the assistance of Science Magic, Ronnie and Ms. Lernin travel back through time and space to experience the Mesozoic Era firsthand. They visit three important time periods in the development of the Mesozoic Era: the Triassic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous. Along the way, Ronnie finds herself face-to-face with real-life dinosaurs and reptiles, like stegosauruses, velociraptors, and thalattosaurs. With the help of her neighbor’s trusty knowledge of prehistoric times, she learns the differences between herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores, as well as between dinosaurs, insects, and reptiles. This insightful and informative graphic novel uses engaging art to bring facts to life, giving kids the tools to understand the evolution of these prehistoric creatures and the important effects this era had on our world today.

Dinosaur Empire!

Tim J Myers

Anisa Claire Hovemen

Heads up, dino lovers! If by chance you end up in an ancient habitat, and if you offer a T-Rex a bone, things could get . . . well . . . interesting. Dangerously interesting! Storyteller and teacher Tim Myers magically introduces the reader to all types of dinosaurs in quirky sort of way. The boy in the story had a tough day, dodging T-Rex by hiding in the underbrush, only to encounter a toothy dimetrodon. He escapes into a nearby bay, only to attract a 42-foot kronsaurus . . . it was a long day, running to and fro among ancient habitats. There is lots of science, but no boring nonfiction here!

Top 10 Paleontology Books

Paleontology