In the novel the discovery of dinosaurs was sensational news in 1912, but by the late 1940s, dinosaurs no longer interest the public much. One of the few remaining dinosaur circuses, Circus Lothar: Lothar Gluck's Dinosaur Circus, has been losing money for years, and its owner, Lothar Gluck, decides to close it down. In spite of a good offer to purchase his dinosaurs by Ringling Brothers, Gluck chooses to send his dinosaurs back to where they came from, the plateau of Conan Doyle's The Lost World. National Geographic hires freelance adventurer Anthony Belzoni to cover the return of the dinosaurs to their wild habitat, and being primarily a photographer, he invites his bookish son Peter to come along to record in words their adventure. Dinosaurs are fickle beasts, and human beings can be very dangerous, too; between them, Peter has the adventure of a lifetime.

Dinosaur Summer is a...