• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7

Home to the 2,500-km Fossil Trail, the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, and Dinosaur Provincial Park—a UNESCO World Heritage site—the Alberta Badlands have unearthed more species of dinosaurs than anywhere else in the world and hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the fossil beds annually. Despite being star attractions in museums around the world, the dinosaurs of Alberta have never before been the subject of a book that explores their unique interrelationships and scientific importance, while still being accessible to young readers.

In Dinosaurs of the Alberta Badlands, paleontologist Dr. Persons travels back in time 76 million years to the Late Cretaceous period, when pterosaurs soared through the skies, prehistoric sea monsters as long as school buses swam in Alberta’s shallow sea, and ankylosaurs and ceratopsians roamed the swamps and flood plains that would eventually become the badlands of today. Meet the terrifying Albertosaurus, a relative of Tyrannosaurus, and the plant-eating, duck-billed Edmontosaurus. Bet on the winner of a race between a tyrannosaur and a hadrosaur—who’s quick and deadly, who’s slow and steady? Explore some of Alberta’s most notable dig sites, including the Danek Bonebed, and learn how fossils form and what paleontologists do when they find them. And discover dinosaurs’ avian legacy and Alberta’s official provincial “dinosaur”—the great horned owl.

Featuring paleoart by Julius Csotonyi, over seventy-five photos and illustrations, and profiles of leading paleontologists, Dinosaurs of the Alberta Badlands showcases Alberta’s prehistoric beasts, not as participants in a parade of isolated monsters, but as animals adapted to be part of a long-lost ecosystem.

Dr. W. Scott Persons IV is a paleontologist and instructor at the University of Alberta. He has taken part in fossil-hunting expeditions throughout the badlands of the American West, the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, the canyons of Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, the pampas of Argentina, and the volcanic ash beds of Northern China. His work has been featured on the National Geographic and Discovery channels and in Smithsonian and Discover Magazine. He lives in Edmonton, AB, with his wife, Amanda.

W. Scott Persons' profile page

Dr. Julius T. Csotonyi is a paleoartist and has collaborated on projects with several major museums and book publishers from around the globe, including the National Geographic Society and the Royal Tyrrell Museum. His artwork has appeared in numerous books including recently The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi (Titan Books, 2014) and Dinosaur Art: The World’s Greatest Paleoart (Titan Books, 2012). He has been honoured with the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize for 2-Dimensional Art three times (2010, 2012, 2014). He lives in Vancouver, BC.

Julius T. Csotonyi's profile page

• Winner, Independent Publisher Book Awards (Juvenile/Young Adult Non-Fiction) - GOLD MEDAL

This book is a time machine, showing Alberta as humans have never seen it. Hyper-realistic illustrations depict a very different land from what we see today; a seashore, with creatures the size of houses browsing along beaches, long-necked monsters patrolling beneath the waves, and long-winged featherless fliers filling the skies. Scott Persons introduces us to the people who discovered the remains of these amazing beasts in what is now the badlands of Alberta, the richest treasure trove of dinosaur fossils in the world. Young and old alike will keep coming back to this incredible collection of life from a time long before people existed.

Bob McDonald, host of Quirks and Quarks

Dinosaurs of the Alberta Badlands is a stunning tribute to one of the world’s greatest fossil regions. Written by one of the palaeontologists who has added to the greatness through his collection of and research on the dinosaurs of Alberta, the book is also illustrated one of the greatest palaeoartists of our time! The combined talents of these two experts--Drs. Scott Persons and Julius Csotonyi--have produced an up-to-date, authoritative, lively account worthy of Alberta’s rich palaeontological heritage! To understand the significance of the resource, Alberta’s dinosaurs are discussed in the wider context of their position in deep time, of their relationships dead and living, of their ecosystems, and of the high level of research that is in progress today.

Dr. Philip Currie