Product Description

"You have written a new chapter in the history of life upon the earth."

When Roy Chapman Andrews read these words from American Museum of Natural History president Henry Fairfield Osborn, he was being congratulated on his discovery of a new species of dinosaur. A stunned scientific community named it Protoceratops andrewsi in his honor.

Andrews led five scientific expeditions to Mongolia's desert, the Gobi, from 1922 to 1930. He was a pioneer of modern field research, but it was his team's fossil discoveries that amazed the world -- especially the first-ever complete nest of dinosaur eggs. These were remarkable achievements for a man who began his scientific career scrubbing floors at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

It wasn't easy. Along the way, he battled sandstorms, snakes, and bandit attacks. He drove through parts of the desert that had never seen cars before, and he had to have spare tires -- and every drop of gasoline -- carted in by camel.

Roy Chapman Andrews had a love of adventure that took him all over the globe. This action packed story, actual expedition photographs, and quotes from Andrews himself present a great explorer of his century -- and a grand tale of adventure!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #521971 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-01
• Released on: 2000-03-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 64 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 5-9-Whether or not the charismatic Andrews was "the real-life model" for Indiana Jones, he was certainly a flamboyant, headline-grabbing paleontologist in the days of his Mongolian expeditions. This slim, well-researched book is a record of his life and accomplishments. Larded with quotes from his own writings and personal letters, and with fine sepia-toned photographs taken in the field and in more civilized surroundings, the absorbing text invites readers into a world distant in both space and time. Andrews's adventurous spirit and organizational skills opened a new age in scientific exploration, using then-modern technology and a diverse team of experts in various fields. Recent explorations to Central Asia have brought to light startling new fossil finds that have been chronicled in such excellent titles as Mark Norell and Lowell Dingus's A Nest of Dinosaurs (Doubleday, 1999) and Searching for Velociraptor (HarperCollins, 1996), and Margery Facklam's Tracking Dinosaurs in the Gobi (21st Century, 1997). Inevitably, readers of these books will encounter Andrews, and what better way for a fresh generation of dinophiles and budding scientists to further this acquaintance than this exemplary work on an extraordinary individual.
Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Before he was named director of New York City's American Museum of Natural History, the young naturalist Andrews earned his stripes in the field. He began on the sands of Long Island, removing the bones from a beached whale, and then went on to more whale research on both sides of the Pacific. Where Andrews really made his mark, though, was China. Over a 12-year period, he conducted several intensive expeditions into Mongolia and central Asia, uncovering the first dinosaur eggs and the first fossils of Protoceratops, Oviraptor, and Velociraptor. The details of mounting these car-and-camel treks are fascinating, as are the many sepia photos, but Bausum's recounting of the discoveries is surprisingly tame. There is no sense of jubilation at Andrews having "written a new chapter in the history of life upon the earth." We also see little of his personal side once his career is off and running. This is an interesting, but curiously cold biography that will appeal more to dinosaur lovers than armchair adventurers. A chronology and a resource guide are appended. Randy Meyer

From Kirkus Reviews
Along with a generous array of atmospheric, sometimes dramatic, contemporary photographs, this biography charts Andrews's career as intrepid adventurer but praises him chiefly as a scientist who was also a skilled organizer and leader. Plainly a progenitor of Indiana Jones (he even hated snakes), Andrews began by mopping floors at New York's American Museum of Natural History, eventually became its director, and in-between led a series of literally and figuratively ground-breaking expeditions into the Gobi in search of fossils. Bausum barely mentions his private life, but she does add some depth to her portrait by quoting him (``In the [first] fifteen years [of fieldwork] I can remember just ten times when I had really narrow escapes from death'') and by taking him to task for some misidentifications and for his proprietary attitude toward fossils found in foreign soil. Well chosen lists of books and sites cap this tribute to a man whose writings and exploits continue to inspire dinosaur hunters of all ages. (chronology, index) (Biography. 11-14) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A question of accuracy
To answer some of Ann Bausum's questions:

-- Who discovered Velociraptor? Answer: Walter Granger.

-- Who discovered that dinosaurs lay eggs? Answer: Walter Granger found a dinosaur eggshell fragment at Flaming Cliffs on September 2, 1922. George Olsen found the first whole eggs there a year later on July 10, 1923. However, paleontologists had theorized for years that dinosaurs laid eggs. All that was needed was proof. Granger and Olsen supplied that. Andrews did not attend Olsen's discovery. Granger did.

-- Who helped prove that mammals lived in the age of dinosaurs? Answer: Walter Granger, and his western, Chinese and Mongolian assistants in the field.

These are the correct answers, but you won't find them in this book. This Andrews hagiography is widely off base. The scientific fieldwork of the Central Asiatic Expeditions was coordinated by Walter Granger who was the Expedition's chief paleontologist and second-in-command. Andrews, by his own admission in his own publications, was not a paleontologist or a competent fossil collector.

Roy Chapman Andrews: A Real-Life Indiana Jones
Real-life is usually so much more interesting than the movies, and Ann Bausum's wonderful photobiography of Roy Chapman Andrews - Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs - will be ample evidence of this to any young Indiana Jones fan. Roy Chapman Andrews [1884-1960] was an explorer and is best known for the Central Asiatic Expeditions, which he led on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History and during which the first dinosaur eggs and nests were found. He is also a probable model for the character of Indiana Jones. Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs puts its main focus on Andrew's life from his employment with the AMNH through to the expeditions to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The book is a well-done combination of photographs, text, and block quotes. The text is well-written and exciting [even for an older person like me], and the pictures help the reader to put themselves into the story. Did Roy Chapman Andrews wear a cool looking hat? [YES!] Did Roy Chapman Andrews dislike snakes and did he have a run-in with them on one of the expeditions? [YES!] I recommend this book to any young person of late elementary age who is interested in exploration and paleontology.