PTEROSAURS: Rulers of the Skies in the Dinosaur Age

One hundred million years ago, the skies were filled with enormous flying reptiles. With wing spans up to nearly forty feet, pterosaurs were the dominant life form on earth. Long extinct, we know about pterosaurs from their fossil bones.

On a recent visit to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina, my family bought me a wonderful souvenir--a plush Pterodactyl to go with my book Pterosaurs: Rulers of the Skies in the Dinosaur Age.  Pterodactyls were just one of many species of pterosaurs. The stuffed toy Pterodactyl will be perfect to share with children at my author visits to schools and libraries as I talk about about pterosaurs and other giant reptiles of the past. 

You can find Pterosaurs: Rulers of the Dinosaur Age on Amazon. It may also be available at your library. 

For reviews of the book and more information, go to my website.

EASTER ISLAND is Now a Kindle Book

My book, EASTER ISLAND is now available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle. It was originally published by Clarion Books in 2000 and is out of print. The cover has been redesigned but the text and full color photos inside are the same as in the original book. EASTER ISLAND is illustrated with my own photos, taken on my visit to the island in 1996. I am happy to have EASTER ISLAND now available to new readers as an e-book. You can read it with a Kindle app on various devices (I use my iPad) or on your computer.

REVIEW
School Library Journal, starred review
Arnold provides a clear and concise look at the island and the many mysteries that surround it, detailing its early settlement, its people and resources, and the rise and fall of its rich and complex civilization. One of the most intriguing questions that remains unanswered is how the ancient Rapanui people carved and erected hundreds of giant stone statues found all over the island. The author carefully explains how scientists have theorized on the early history and how the decimation over time of the islands natural resources and its isolation from trade routes may have led to its decline in population. The book concludes with a quick look at the tourism that is renewing pride in the unique heritage of the few hundred remaining Rapanui people, as the island becomes a model open-air museum.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Although the purpose of the moai [giant statues] that seem to stand sentinel around the famous island is obviously the intriguing mystery here, Arnold sets the stone figures into cultural perspective, examining what archaeologists, anthropologists, missionaries, explorers, and descendants of island settlers have discovered concerning the Polynesians who carved them. In a dozen succinct chapters she surveys the land and its original topography, discusses legends about the earliest settlers, reconstructs how the moai were carved, moved, and placed, and speculates on how deforestation, overfarming, overhunting, clan warfare, and European-borne disease contributed to the decline of the island civilization.