The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins

The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley is the true story of a famous artist in London that created life size models of dinosaurs during the mid 1800s. His work was so famous and well liked in... that scientists in America wanted him to build a life size museum in New York. However, there was a very corrupt politician who thought this was a waste of money so he had some of his men break into the workshop of Waterhouse and destroy his models. This ended all work to the museum and Waterhouse moved to Princeton to do paintings of the dinosaurs instead. He was very disappointed that he was not able to finish his work in New York and died dreaming of what he could have built there.
    I thought this was a very interesting book. It did not turn out the way I thought it would according to the summary on the back of the book. I thought this was going to be a fantasy themed book where the dinosaurs actually came to life but it turned out that his models were so amazing that they looked very real. The pictures in this book are beautiful and go great with the text in the book.
    The text in the book is a bit advanced so ESOL learners may have trouble reading it on their own. Students in the fourth grade and up will be able to read this book but they may have to look a few words up that are foreign to them. This is a gender neutral book so boys and girls will both enjoy reading this book. I think boys would especially love this book because it is about dinosaurs. I would have this book in my classroom library and use it as a read aloud as well. The history in this story is very informative and not something that a lot of people know about. This book would prompt great discussions about the history of art, science, corrupt governments, and the history of New York. This is a great book that could be used for many different educational opportunities.