The Deep Time Diaries

Recorded by Neesha and Jon Olifee

Transcribed by Gary Raham

The Olifee family hadn't planned to travel 800 million years into the past. But when an accident hurled their shuttle through a wormhole, they were on their way toward adventures through Earth's ancient past. Many years later paleontologists unearthed the diaries of the Olifee family, the basis for The Deep Time Diaries.

Reading this fictional journal, in which the imaginary Olifees detail their amazing discoveries during their journey through time, students receive a unique introduction to paleontology and geology. Activities, maps, books, and Internet resources allow students to relate today's ecologies to Earth's history.

ISBN 1-55591-415-2 color & B/W art grades 4 - 7

96 pages, paperback $17.95

Raham "transcribes" diaries kept by the two youngest members of a family of time travelers, then adds explanatory essays, places to visit, maps, sources for further information, and even games and puzzles. Ragging on one another in a brotherly/sisterly way, Jon and Neesha, with their parents, take an alien time machine to nine points in the distant past, beginning with a stop near the La Brea tar pits about 20,000 years ago, and ending in the Precambrian Era 800 million years earlier. Raham does not stint on specific detail in his supplementary material, which ranges from a plethora of mouth-filling scientific names, fossil-distribution charts, and which "dig-your-own" fossil sites in the U.S. charge admission to an extensive glossary dubbed "Neesha's Selected Guide to Big Words." Though the illustrationsa mix of simple drawings and watery-looking color scenes are nothing to write home about compared to the technically accomplished, melodramatic dinosaur art widely available in other books, and some of the various typefaces are thin to the point of invisibility, young proto-paleontologists will find plenty of solid information as they enjoy the Olifees' breezy observations and misadventures. Grades 4-6.

John Peters

New York Public Library

School Library Journal



	The Deep Time Diaries Recorded by Neesha and Jon Olifee Transcribed by Gary Raham The Olifee family hadn't planned to travel 800 million years into the past. But when an accident hurled their shuttle through a wormhole, they were on their way toward adventures through Earth's ancient past. Many years later paleontologists unearthed the diaries of the Olifee family, the basis for The Deep Time Diaries. Reading this fictional journal, in which the imaginary Olifees detail their amazing discoveries during their journey through time, students receive a unique introduction to paleontology and geology. Activities, maps, books, and Internet resources allow students to relate today's ecologies to Earth's history. ISBN 1-55591-415-2 color & B/W art grades 4 - 7 96 pages, paperback $17.95 Raham "transcribes" diaries kept by the two youngest members of a family of time travelers, then adds explanatory essays, places to visit, maps, sources for further information, and even games and puzzles. Ragging on one another in a brotherly/sisterly way, Jon and Neesha, with their parents, take an alien time machine to nine points in the distant past, beginning with a stop near the La Brea tar pits about 20,000 years ago, and ending in the Precambrian Era 800 million years earlier. Raham does not stint on specific detail in his supplementary material, which ranges from a plethora of mouth-filling scientific names, fossil-distribution charts, and which "dig-your-own" fossil sites in the U.S. charge admission to an extensive glossary dubbed "Neesha's Selected Guide to Big Words." Though the illustrationsa mix of simple drawings and watery-looking color scenes are nothing to write home about compared to the technically accomplished, melodramatic dinosaur art widely available in other books, and some of the various typefaces are thin to the point of invisibility, young proto-paleontologists will find plenty of solid information as they enjoy the Olifees' breezy observations and misadventures. Grades 4-6. John Peters New York Public Library School Library Journal