Writers and Dinosaurs

Caroline with Skeleton of a Giant Sea Reptile (Los Angeles County Natural History Museum)

Fellow blogger and children’s book writer Greg Leitich Smith has launched a feature on his blog showing photographs of  children’s book authors with dinosaurs.  Well, obviously not with REAL dinosaurs, but with skeletons or other representations of the giant, extinct reptiles.  Last week he put up a post of me with skeletons of two of my favorite extinct reptiles, a mosasaur, a type of  giant sea reptile, and a pteranodon, a giant flying reptile. I am comparing my wingspan with that of the pteranodon, whose wings stretched nearly 20 feet from tip to tip!  While these creatures are not dinosaurs, they are both giant reptiles that lived in the Dinosaur Age.  You can read about them in my books Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age and Pterosaurs, Rulers of the Skies in the Dinosaur Age.  (And, just in case you are having trouble pronouncing the word “pterosaurs”,  remember that the “p” is silent so the word is pronounced as if it begins with “t”.  Pterosaurs were not birds and did not have feathers.  Their wings were made of thin skin.)