PAPER PLATE DINOSAURS

Who doesn't love dinosaurs?  First graders at a school I visited read my book Dinosaurs All Around, which tells how artist Steven Czerkas creates life-size dinosaurs for museum displays, and then created their own dinosaurs with paper plates.  The curved edge of the paper plate is perfect for attaching the bony plates on the back of a stegosaurus.  I love the way students gave the dinosaurs all sorts of different colors.

Dinosaurs All Around was published in 1993 by Clarion Books.

Stephen Czerkas's dinosaur models, ranging from the largest carnivores to hatching babies, are widely exhibited in museums. This book is based on a traveling exhibit, "Dinosaurs: A Global View," organized by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and a visit to the artist's studio. Czerkas draws on a painstaking study of fossil bones, living reptiles, and modern animal behavior in the process of putting skin over the bones, choosing color and markings and action poses for the most true-to-life portrayal possible.

Learn how such models are constructed, and the decisions the artist must make in portraying these long-vanished reptiles. Find out how models like these help us to understand what life was like millions of years ago when dinosaurs were alive.