In the Badlands of Montana, many stories are waiting to be told - about Triceratops and Ankylosaurus and ancient crocodiles. There, scientists search for the bones of animals that lived millions of years ago. In Dinosaur Dig, Kathryn Lasky and Christopher G. Knight, the award- winning writer-and-photographer team, describe the dirty sweaty and exciting job they and five other families perform as they search for fossils in the Badlands.
Dr. Keith Rigby the paleontologist (or fossil scientist) in charge of the dig, puts everyone to work right away "sniffing dirt" and sifting through every handful of sandy sediment for fossil teeth and bones. Each piece tells something about a time long ago, but the stories the diggers want most are about dinosaurs, and this requires a different kind of search.
For the families, it means struggling up and down the slippery siltstone hills in 100-degree heat, looking hard for fossils and rattlesnakes. With sharp-pointed awls, diggers carefully scrape at the rock, hoping to uncover a dinosaur bone. Dinosaur Dig is a feast of keen observation, magnificent photography and information about the earth's ancient past. Like any good story, it captures expectations and disappointments, close calls and, finally success as the diggers uncover - then race to preserve - the bones of a creature that died 67 million years ago.
Kathryn Lasky's interest in fossil research has resulted in two other distinguished books, her 1988 novel, The Bone Wars, and, in 1989, her exploration of hominid development, Traces of Life: The Origins of Humankind.
Christopher G. Knight, photographer and filmmaker, has collaborated with Ms. Lasky on many photographic essays, including Sugaring Time, a Newbery Honor Book; The Weaver's Gift, winner of the Boston G1obe Hornbook Award for Nonfiction; and Puppeteer, an ALA Notable Book.
In 1985, Kathryn Lasky received the Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Award for the body of her nonfiction. She and Mr. Knight are married and live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with their children, Max and Meribah.