DINOSAURS AT THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, by Brian Floca

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Ages 6 and up.
A Richard Jackson Book | DK Ink

The New York Times Book Review:
Here is a dinosaur book in which the science-text stuff is pushed to the margins, literally. Basic facts about the dinosaurs in question (their scientific names, sizes, eating habits and places along the geologic time line) are dispensed with inside the front and back covers, and in two helpful pages at the end.
It's a clever move. While not neglecting his paleontology -- the dinosaur biographies and illustrations are meticulous and lucid -- Brian Floca leaves plenty of room for a thrilling human tale: the 1920's expeditions to Mongolia by fossil hunters from the American Museum of Natural History.
Dinosaurs at the Ends of the Earth is rich with obligatory dinosaur data, but here the facts essentially become the opening and closing credits of a real-life adventure movie. Its heroes are Roy Chapman Andrews, zoologist and expedition leader; Walter Granger, chief paleontologist and second in command; and George Olsen, assistant in paleontology, looking a lot like Tintin with his felt cap and inquisitive round face.
By leading an expedition into the Gobi Desert, Andrews had hoped to find evidence of prehistoric humans in Asia. Instead, Floca notes, his team made a discovery that ''amazed the world'' -- one of the world's richest troves of dinosaur fossils, including the first dinosaur eggs ever found.
This is natural history retold as a David Lean film, in vivid watercolors instead of Cinemascope. …
Floca admits taking fictional liberties with his story, but his careful research shows. Children absorbing this tale will probably come away knowing more than they did about the painstaking delicacy of unearthing fossils, the techniques of protecting and packing them for shipment (flour, camel wool and underwear come in handy), the geography of Mongolia, what its nomadic tribespeople wear and even how they build their yurts.
There's a final pleasant surprise on the back cover of the book: a photograph of the real Roy Chapman Andrews, looking every bit the daring explorer as he cradles a dinosaur egg, a broad-brimmed hat shielding his face from the noonday Gobi sun, a pickax at his feet and a revolver on his hip. Lawrence Downes.

Click here to read the complete review, “Indiana Bones,” at The New York Times online.

Children's Literature:
The dinosaur facts are here, but the real story is the incredible expedition into Mongolia led by Roy Chapman Andrews. It is better than fiction; the heroes are real and the adventures will make kids wish they could become paleontologists, and live in the 1920s. The original mission was to find prehistoric evidence of humans in central Asia, but Andrews and his team found something even more exciting--a trove of dinosaur fossils and the first dinosaur eggs. Each watercolor image spreads across two pages. They reveal the desolation of the Gobi and its enormity. Floca depicts the men at work and tells a bit about the local inhabitants. The vast emptiness makes this discovery even more incredible. The serendipity--a scientist falls down a cliff and discovers a field of fossils--is the stuff of movies. There is even a bit of humor as Floca describes how the men of the expedition were reduced to using their underwear to create casts for the delicate bones before shipping to museums for study. A book that will appeal to kids and many adults. Marilyn Courtot.

Horn Book:
Sure, a disconcerting number of children can rattle off complex Latin names for every dinosaur known to humankind, but how many of them know who came up with those names, and how many appreciate the efforts necessary to find the first fossils? Floca's spirited tale of the American Museum of Natural History's arduous expeditions into Mongolia in the 1920s contributes welcome historical perspective. This fictionalized account of the expeditions led by museum director-and colorful character-Roy Chapman Andrews (an author's note briefly sketches the life and work of the real Andrews) is told from the point of view of then research assistant George Olsen. During the expeditions, George stumbles upon the first dinosaur egg fossils, a huge discovery that completely revises existing theories in the field of paleontology. The upbeat dialogue feels historically appropriate, a tone that is reflected in the watercolor illustrations, with their careful attention to period details. The attention to scientific detail is also excellent-accurate descriptions of the ways in which paleontological expeditions were conducted are skillfully integrated into the narrative. Sadly, these fossil expeditions-with all their promise for exciting new developments in scientific theories about dinosaurs-were the last in the region for sixty years, as Mongolia was closed to Western visitors. As a result, Andrews's theories were left untouched until the early 1990s, when new expeditions by Mongolian and American researchers yielded even more amazing finds. Sitting neatly at an intersection of history, science, and storytelling, the book provides historical context for children who already know loads of facts about dinosaurs, but also sneaks in scientific learning for those who primarily find the story engaging. Endpapers provide further information about four dinosaurs discovered in this region, and a timeline plots their appearance in the Earth's history. Perhaps the best feature of the fictionalized account is that it leaves the reader wanting to know even more about dinosaurs, scientific expeditions, and the characters in the story-fostering more reading and learning about the science and history of paleontology. Danielle J. Ford.

School Library Journal:
A highly pictorial, fictionalized account of real scientific expeditions led by Roy Chapman Andrews. Under the aegis of the American Museum of Natural History, the goal of the Central Asiatic Expeditions was to discover evidence of human origin in the heart of Mongolia's Gobi Desert, and while no human/hominid fossils were found, what was discovered made global headlines. Floca has braided these marvelous adventures together, focusing on young George Olsen, a new assistant to the Chief Paleontologist, and his discovery of the first clutch of fossilized dinosaur eggs. The author seamlessly weaves events from several expeditions, adds some logical dialogue, and teams the result with bright, realistic watercolors to transport readers across space and time to the vast, arid Gobi and the startling Flaming Cliffs. While purists will carp at the mélange of incidents and the fictional dialogue, this is a worthy introduction to the romantic era of fossil hunting. Ann Bausum's superb Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs (National Geographic, 2000), Margery Facklam's excellent Tracking Dinosaurs in the Gobi (21st Century, 1997), and Mark Norell and Lowell Dingus's riveting A Nest of Dinosaurs (Doubleday, 1999) are all more scientific, but are for a slightly older audience. Patricia Manning.

Kirkus Reviews:
In 1922 Roy Chapman Andrews, noted dinosaur hunter from the Museum of Natural History, and a team of fossil hunters; set off for Outer Mongolia to discover evidence of human origin in Asia. Traveling the road-less Gobi desert by automobile, provisioned by caravans of camels, the paleontologists discovered not human remains, but dinosaurs and the first dinosaur eggs ever found. In this title, Floca (Five Trucks. 1999, etc.) takes the events and discoveries of the Central Asiatic Expedition and creates an `imagined or fictionalized` story. In doing so, he pioneers a new genre: historical science fiction. His writing, laced with actual events, invented dialogue and thoughts of the scientists, captures the quirky personalities of the hunters. But, it is the meticulously drawn watercolors which spark the imagination while enriching the text. Some of the most dramatic pages show the desert camp at night and the minute caravan winding its way through the vast sweep of the Gobi desert. The last page of text provides a time line and an afterward. Flap copy states that the author has done "extensive research for the book," however there is no evidence or documentation to that effect. Difficult to place, since it is cataloged in nonfiction, but is filled with fiction, this will appeal to dinosaur fans willing to accept made-up conversations because the story is a compelling one. (Nonfiction. 10-12)

Note: The Kirkus review makes the fair point that something more should have been said about sources — especially since they are so interesting in their own right.

In researching the book I looked at the hundreds of photographs taken on the Central Asiatic Expeditions, which are available to the public in the library on the 4th floor of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I read about various expeditions to Mongolia, biographies and an autobiography of Roy Chapman Andrews, and I relied especially on the beautiful and hefty (if unfortunately titled) tome that Andrews and his colleagues assembled as a record of their explorations: The New Conquest of Central Asia. It’s a beauty of a book, and it took more than a little of the advance for my own book to pick up a copy.

In all the writing and the illustrating for Dinosaurs at the Ends of the Earth, I did my best to stick to the facts. This was done with things like the locations of discoveries and scientific methods, but also with more incidental matters like times of day, bits of dialogue, names of bandits, the depiction of unnamed background characters, and even the depiction of Walter Granger’s pet bird.

The one big fiction in the book concerns George Olsen. The real Olsen was indeed an assistant on the Expeditions, who did indeed fall down that cliff and find those eggs. I thought that a young assistant making an incredible discovery provided young readers a great point of entry into the story. The book was well underway when I learned that Olsen, though an assistant, was not particularly young. And that he was Danish. And a little overweight. And that he had a mustache. But he had become so useful to the way that I had structured the book, that I kept him as initially written.

-B.F.

Booklist:
The picture-book format's sweeping, delicately detailed watercolor illustrations distinguish this from most dinosaur books. What's more, instead of focusing on the dinosaurs themselves, Floca tells the story behind the discovery that dinosaurs hatched from eggs. He introduces the three main explorers--Roy Chapman Andrews, Walter Granger, and George Olsen--on the title page, before continuing with an account of their 1922 expedition to Mongolia. The journey is amazingly smooth, aside from ruts in the trail that stop the cars. The men even manage to meet the 75-camel supply caravan, which left a month earlier than they did, within an hour of their arrival on site. The account has a fresh, affable tone, which Floca may have achieved, in part, by fictionalizing some of the elements, which he admits in an endnote. Although that makes it difficult to gauge how reliable this is as a source of information, it makes for an engaging adventure. Four Mongolian dinosaurs are described on the endpapers. Susan Dove Lempke.

NEW! File this one under out-of-print-but-still-kicking. The following is from "What Makes a Good Dinosaur Book? Beyond Barney," by Danielle J. Ford, in the May/June 2007 issue of The Horn Book Magazine:

"The field of paleontology is based on a relatively limited set of evidence, which provides plenty of opportunities to discuss the community of scientists and how they convince one another of their ideas. Indeed, this is an area of strength in dinosaur books, with plenty of good ones to mention. Brian Floca’s Dinosaurs at the Ends of the Earth gives historical perspective on turn-of-the-last-century science. Nic Bishop’s Digging for Bird-Dinosaurs updates readers with a modern field expedition to see how fossils are uncovered, while Sandra Markle’s Outside and Inside Dinosaurs gives us the technology used when those fossils return to the laboratory. Kathleen V. Kudlinski in Boy, Were We Wrong about Dinosaurs! dares to admit that scientific theories change as new ideas and evidence are introduced.

Each of the books above illustrates components of what makes a good dinosaur book: taking on challenging topics as accurately yet as creatively as possible, illuminating aspects of scientific theory and practice that help readers understand their nature, and never losing the wonder and excitement felt by scientists and children alike when imagining what Earth must have been like when dinosaurs were around."