In the Time of Dinosaurs

Starred review from August 29, 1994
Readers eager to hop aboard Ms. Frizzle's bus for another junket will not be disappointed by this latest expedition. It's visitor's day at school and the students have turned the classroom into Dinosaur Land, but the impulsive teacher nevertheless announces a dinosaur dig, and the class piles onto the magic school bus. At the site, paleontologists have uncovered the bones of some Maiasaura dinosaurs, but are disappointed that they haven't found any nests. With a characteristic gleam in her eye, Ms. Frizzle asks, ``Want to look for some Maiasaura nests, kids?''--and the bus becomes a time machine transporting the class back millions of years. They make stops in the Late Triassic Period, the Late Jurassic Period, the Late Cretaceous Period and, finally, the Cretaceous Period, where they discover a Maiasaura nesting ground. In exploring each era, the students examine various dinosaur species' habits and habitats, diets and physical characteristics. As always, Cole's text and Degen's art are fastidiously researched and exuberantly presented on creatively crowded pages. Ages 6-9.