Walking on Eggs

Many people must have dreamed of having a career as a palaeontologist - going to exotic places and discovering new dinosaur fossils. Walking on Eggs, by Luis Chiappe and Lowell Dingus, is the story of a group of scientists who did just that. It tells the story of the discovery in 1997 of a large number of dinosaur egg fossils in Patagonia. There are plenty of details about the trials and tribulations of travel in a remote area, and of excavating the eggs for further research. It's well worth reading if you want an insight into how such discoveries are actually made.

The book explains what the discovery tells us about the life of dinosaurs - whether they lived in groups, and how much they looked after their young. It goes into some detail concerning the interrelationships of the various species of dinosaurs that were found, explaining the cladistic approach to classification and what the study of the shells of the eggs tells us about their occupants. My feeling is that dinosaur-mad young readers might want something simpler. It's written for the non-specialist, but I think a bit of prior knowledge of palaeontology is useful when reading this book.