Ever wondered why the dinosaurs didn't survive? In this fascinating non-chronological report the success story of crocodiles and lizards (focusing on monitor lizards), and some of the reasons why they have survived since the time of the dinosaurs is explored.

* Purple/ Band 8 books offer developing readers literary language, with some challenging vocabulary.

* Text type - A non-chronological report.

* The book includes a contents page on page 1, plus a glossary and index on pages 20 and 21.

* A fact chart on pages 22 and 23 summarises the distinguishing aspects of each of crocodiles and monitor lizards.

* Curriculum links - Science: Humans and other animals.

This book is part of a book series called Collins Big Cat .

This book has been graded for interest at 6-7 years. This book is part of a reading scheme, meaning that it is a book aimed at children who are learning to read. This reading book uses the phonics method. This approach concentrates on teaching children how to map between sounds and spellings, allowing them to decode written words into their constituent sounds. Phonics skill thus involves being able to split the written word 'cat' into the phonemes /k/, /a/, /t/, and to map from letter 'c' to phoneme /k/, from letter 'a' to phoneme /ae/ and from letter 't' to phoneme /t/. Decoding skill is useful when reading unfamiliar words which use regular spelling sequences.

There are 24 pages in this book. This book was published 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers .

Jonathan and Angie Scott are award-winning wildlife photographers based in Kenya. They have travelled to the furthest corners of the globe in search of material for their work and have produced more than twenty books. They are particularly proud to be authors of titles in the Collins Big Cat series, as education and conservation are particularly close to their hearts. Jonathan was born in 1965, the son of a rig fitter and a primary school teacher. He first developed his skills as a writer and illustrator while studying architecture, illustrating poems and lyrics that he had written. After leaving college, he worked as an architect for several years, before pursuing a career in children's books. In addition to writing books such as Bringing Down the Moon, and Ruby Flew Too, he also paper-engineers pop-up books.