Asteroid Impact

From The Critics

The "coolest" book I've seen in a long time is written as if it were a history of what actually happened, with drawings so realistic they look like photos! The dinosaurs seem almost alive, and the asteroid crashing into the ocean is stupendous. Your and your children will love this book! Just remember to stress that it's still just a theory and the author's imagination is at work here. No one really knows exactly what happened, but this book certainly makes it look real! 2000, Dial Books for Young Readers, $16.99. Ages 8 to 12. Reviewer: J. Cook SOURCE: Parent Council Volume 8

Children's Literature

"Asteroids threaten Earth!" Current newspaper headlines suggesting a possible collision in the next seventy years prove Douglas Henderson's timing to be perfect with his book about an impact that occurred 65 million years ago. Henderson, branching out from his earlier books exclusively about dinosaurs, carefully explains the situation on this planet and above it just prior to the six-mile wide asteroid's plummeting into the Yucatán Peninsula, effectively eliminating the era of dinosaurs. Mixing geology, astronomy and paleontology in both text and illustrations, the end result makes for quite an interesting book for both science classes and curious kids. Assistance might be necessary for younger readers, though, as some of the illustrative explanations are as complex as they are ingenious. 2000, Dial. Ages 6 to 10. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-In a seamless combination of dramatic paintings and lucid text, Henderson presents the sequence of events that closed the Cretaceous Period and, according to many scientists, caused the extinction of a vast array of life-forms, including the dinosaurs. Coordinating data from a broad spectrum of disciplines, the author reconstructs the catastrophic impact of an asteroid some six miles across as it rocketed out of space and slammed into the Yucat n Peninsula. Readers can follow, step by step, as the enormous explosion generated a huge crater and devastating shock waves, earthquakes, forest fires, tidal waves, and a vast plume of ejecta reaching up into space (and ultimately surrounding the planet). Two pages of questions and answers detail the 1977 discovery of the K/T boundary, evidence that a comet or asteroid fell to Earth 65 million years ago, and describe the unprecedented coalition of geologists, paleontologists, astronomers, and physicists that brought the theory together. A brilliant re-creation of an apocalypse.-Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

To eyewidening scenes of an asteroid blazing down from the heavens and creating a titanic fireball, Henderson (Dinosaur Ghosts: The Mystery of Coelophysis, 1997) matches a suitably dramatic, written account of how the Age of Dinosaurs probably came to its precipitate end. Explanations are lucid and accessible, appropriately scientific while being fascinating reading. Though this is nowhere near the first book for younger readers that reconstructs that sixtyfivemillionyearold catastrophe, the author does provide a dinosaur'seye view of its first moments, discusses its longterm atmospheric and climatic effects, and points out that it probably brought on the age of mammals, in which we humans are "one story." Henderson's incredible paintings depict a host of prehistoric land and sea creatures with vividly colored skin patterns and his spectacular scenes of billowing flames, clouds of dust, and falling snow and ash are breathtaking. He closes with a questionandanswer section that recounts the modern discovery of the blast's geological and paleontological evidence. (index, short bibliography) (Nonfiction. 810)