Book tells tale of 16-year-old's dino discovery

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Imagine how excited you'd be to discover the bones of a creature that lived millions of years ago.

Well, that really happened. In the new book "Dinomummy" by Dr. Phillip Lars Manning, with a foreword by Tyler Lyson, you'll read the true story of a dinosaur named Dakota, the boy who found him, and a journey from mud to museum.

From the time he was a little kid, Tyler loved to hunt for dinosaur bones in the fields near his South Dakota home. He would explore for hours, and he learned to recognize fossils lying on the ground.

One day, when he was 16 years old, Tyler was out looking around and just about to quit for the day, when he spied a couple of vertebrae. He picked them up and looked again. Tyler suddenly realized that he was looking at fossilized dinosaur skin. He put the dino's location in his GPS and hurried home. He e-mailed Dr. Phillip Lars Manning, who is a paleontologist.

Manning flew to South Dakota, and he and Tyler went back to the field. Manning instantly realized that Tyler had found the remains of a hadrosaur, but that wasn't the big news. This hadrosaur was almost intact. Tyler had found a very rare dinomummy. Manning named it Dakota.

Carefully, the scientists removed Dakota from the ground and took him to a laboratory. But how did Dakota die, and what kinds of secrets did he hold?

Remember the excitement you felt when you found a rock that might have, just possibly been a fossil? Your young scientist will get that same rush when he or she reads "Dinomummy," because this book is about an average boy who made a not-so-average discovery. If that kid can find a dinosaur, then any kid can do it, right?

With a scientist's eye for fact and enthusiastic, kid-friendly explanations, Manning tells kids about the possible life of Dakota the dinosaur and how his team recovered and sleuthed the dino dirt.

Terri Schlichenmeyer's book reviews appear weekly in the View. She can be reached by e-mail at bookwormsez@yahoo.com.