 This children's book from 1955 it's the story of a pair of twins Joey and Joan living on a desert ranch with their young mother who is a widow They are income dependent at least Dependent on having enough income to keep living on the ranch on a Scientist from the city who is a paleontologist looking for dinosaur bones in the rocky canyons on their property and as You can tell from the title of the book and from the pictures here Joey and Joan Discover a stegosaurus Out in the canyons who can speak English he is surprisingly wise and eloquent for someone whose Dialogue consists mostly of reminding you how stupid he is I Mentioned this when I got it in the mail. It was something that I saw mentioned on Facebook and I was Thunderstruck because I had read this book when I was a child and I had a vivid though not detailed memory of it and I had no memory of the title or who wrote it or anything and As soon as I saw this book mentioned Online I was like that's it. That's the book. So I found a copy. I wish I had the dust jacket Of course But from page one I was impressed with how good the writing is This again, this is a children's book. This is not a young adult book This is for children small children Authors who write books for this audience they have a tendency to write down to the kids Lampman doesn't The writing style is actually quite good and quite mature. I thought that she has a respect for her audience So that's probably why One of the reasons why I enjoyed the book when I was a child The story is very charming the stegosaurus itself is very charming The science is surprisingly good. There's a lot of talk of paleontology and about fossils not all the science is Up to date. There's a point at which the stegosaurus reminds the kids that Only birds have feathers dinosaurs don't have feathers There's also a moment here in chapter one you can see it in the picture here where The stegosaurus saves the kids lives by stepping on a Rattlesnake and it's made very clear that the rattlesnake is killed. I think a book written today The author would avoid killing the rattlesnake Well, I was I found reading this to be a great joy. It was great fun The art is quite good. I being a cartoonist myself. I really love this sharp clean style It's very expressive has a lot of motion to it But I learned two things namely why I had such a Strong vivid memory of it and also why my memory Lack such detail the the number one thing that I remembered from this book The only thing I remembered from it actually it happened in the first chapter When the kids first met the stegosaurus it describes him as being Physically very colorful with broad stripes of oranges and tans So that when he stood against the canyon wall people actually couldn't see him That impressed me and that was the one thing that Stayed with me all these decades the one big problem with the book and The reason why I didn't remember the rest of it At about the halfway point the author introduces a subplot where two men in a Small propeller airplane make an emergency landing on the ranch because they're out of fuel One of them has a briefcase That he never lets out of his sight and never lets go of and of course they turn out to be bank robbers and then the kids have to Catch the bank robbers and they need the stegosaurus has helped so it started out being a really interesting and really unusual story That I haven't the likes of which I really hadn't seen before or since and then it turned into an episode of Lassie Which I really don't care about Still it was a very enjoyable read. I would definitely recommend That if you have children who enjoy dinosaurs and what children don't This is a book that I recommend that you get and and read to your children It's great fun the stegosaurus himself as I said is very charming and very memorable so many times Stories that involve children and an animal the animal will die or something That doesn't happen in this book. You can rest assured There's no death other than the rattlesnake, but yeah, this is a double thumbs up for a good science fiction children's book with a lot of good science and it's also an antique and You can discuss with your children why Joey and Joan don't just use their cell phones But there you go Shy stegosaurus of cricket Creek You can support 30 second sci-fi and my other projects by becoming a patron There is a link in the description below and visit the 30 second sci-fi tumbler That's my headquarters in addition to my videos. I publish links and updates there every day