DJ Kristoff is a world traveler, adventurer, seeker of truth, and award-winning science teacher extraordinaire. The locations in her story are real. The science and history are real. She earned the nickname Dino Diane on a dinosaur dig with the Museum of the Rockies at Camposaur in Montana, the excavation site of the real Dr. Alan Grant of Jurassic Park, paleontologist John Horner.
Kristoff has backpacked and rafted the Grand Canyon, scuba-dived the Great Barrier Reef, ridden a camel around the Pyramids at Giza, cruised the Nile, and explored the tombs of the pharaohs. She’s trekked the outback of Australia and the tropical rainforests of Hawaii, ventured along volcanic lava flows, gone on photo safari in Tanzania, helicoptered over Victoria Falls, walked with lion cubs in the African bush, hot-air ballooned over the Maasai Mara, witnessed the male elephant gathering on the Zambezi River, and much more.
Currently living in Fort Myers, Florida, DJ Kristoff began her education career teaching eighth-grade science in Tempe, Arizona. There she founded and directed the Students for Environmental Awareness Club. Kristoff guided as many as 50 adventurous eighth graders hiking and backpacking into the deserts and wildernesses of Arizona and Utah, teaching geology, biology, anthropology, paleontology, and ethnobotany. Now, as a children’s author, she inspires middle-grade students to love nature and science with her magical books.