What Happened to the Dinosaurs? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)

Read and find out about what happened to the dinosaurs in this colorfully illustrated nonfiction picture book.

For millions of years these fantastic creatures roamed our planet. Then, suddenly, they all disappeared. Scientists investigate what could have caused this huge extinction 65 million years ago.

Distinguished writer Franklyn M. Branley and award-winning artist Marc Simont provide the perfect introduction to an always fascinating subject—the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

This Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children is a clear and appealing science book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. It's a Level 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores more challenging concepts for children in the primary grades. The 100+ titles in this leading nonfiction series are:

• hands-on and visual
• acclaimed and trusted
• great for classrooms

Top 10 reasons to love LRFOs:

• Entertain and educate at the same time
• Have appealing, child-centered topics
• Developmentally appropriate for emerging readers
• Focused; answering questions instead of using survey approach
• Employ engaging picture book quality illustrations
• Use simple charts and graphics to improve visual literacy skills
• Feature hands-on activities to engage young scientists
• Meet national science education standards
• Written/illustrated by award-winning authors/illustrators & vetted by an expert in the field
• Over 130 titles in print, meeting a wide range of kids' scientific interests

Books in this series support the Common Core Learning Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) standards. Let's-Read-and-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

Franklyn M. Branley was the originator of the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series and the author of close to 150 popular books about scientific topics for young readers of all ages. He was Astronomer Emeritus and former Chairman of the American Museum of Natural History-Hayden Planetarium.

Marc Simont was born in 1915 in Paris. His parents were from the Catalonia region of Spain, and his childhood was spent in France, Spain, and the United States. Encouraged by his father, Joseph Simont, an artist and staff illustrator for the magazine L'Illustration, Marc Simont drew from a young age. Though he later attended art school in Paris and New York, he considers his father to have been his greatest teacher.

When he was nineteen, Mr. Simont settled in America permanently, determined to support himself as an artist. His first illustrations for a children's book appeared in 1939. Since then, Mr. Simont has illustrated nearly a hundred books, working with authors as diverse as Margaret Wise Brown and James Thurber. He won a Caldecott Honor in 1950 for illustrating Ruth Krauss's The Happy Day, and in in 1957 he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his pictures in A Tree is Nice, by Janice May Udry.

Internationally acclaimed for its grace, humor, and beauty, Marc Simont's art is in collections as far afield at the Kijo Picture Book Museum in Japan, but the honor he holds most dear is having been chosen as the 1997 Illustrator of the Year in his native Catalonia. Mr. Simont and his wife have one grown son, two dogs and a cat. They live in West Cornwall, Connecticut. Marc Simont's most recent book is The Stray Dog.