The book has the potential to attract children curious about travel and science, as well as mystery. It is slow paced, simply written and eyes opening about the relationship with adults, girls and how to act in a completely foreign and unknown environment. A pleasant lecture!

2.5 stars on Goodreads.

Dinosaurs and the Amazon rainforest have been my thing since I was little, so I had to give this a shot. It's a fun, quick, and informative read for grade schoolers... I know I would have loved it when I was a kid.

Matt is 12, and he has a special ability--the ability to hold a dino egg and see what the dinosaur looked like in the past. Matt is excited that he's finally old enough to tag along on an expedition with his dad, a paleontologist and paleo-artist, to find dinosaur eggs in the Amazon.

While the gimmick seems to be dinosaurs and Matt's special ability, dinosaurs take a second-seat to the rainforest in this book. More information is given about the rainforest than about the dinos, which seemed odd. However, it's the kind of information that would have had me wanting to know more about the Amazon, so it's not a bad thing to focus on.

For being the first book in the Dinosaur Detectives series, the first chapters seemed to assume that we already knew the characters from a previous installment--I honestly thought I was reading book 2 in the series, until I looked at the title on Goodreads. The first chapter did set up Matt's ability, but it didn't transition into the second chapter very well, which is why I thought it was a later installment--it felt more like a brief character recap than a proper introduction.

It was disconcerting to see the characters take stereotypical views--Matt thinks his cousin, Jo, wouldn't be able to appreciate dinosaurs or the adventure they were going on. And when she does show that she's knowledgeable in regards to the expedition, it comes across as a show off. It was a quick enough read that I didn't mind it too much, but it was annoying... I hope in the other books, Jo starts to come across as a stronger character.

Overall, I would recommend it to grade schoolers who want a quick read and who are interested in dinosaurs and/or the rainforest; however, I didn't think it would impress most middle-grade readers on up.