Douglas Henderson’s marvelously detailed paintings provide a terrific complement to his cogent text based on scientific theories about an asteroid that collided with Earth sixty-five million years ago. He sets the scene by describing what life was like on the planet near the end of the Cretaceous period, then tells us about a six-mile-wide asteroid that crossed into Earth’s orbit at the speed of 18 miles per second. The dramatic impact, described as a huge explosion that sent an expanding vapor plume rocketing high above the atmosphere, led to catastrophic changes on Earth and is now widely believed to have been responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. (Ages 7-12)

An accurate, step-by-step account of what happened if/when an asteroid collided with Earth, which many scientists are convinced brought the Age of Reptiles to an abrupt end.