logo

Dinosaurs Before Dark

Mary Pope Osborne

Dinosaurs Before Dark

Mary Pope Osborne

Dinosaurs Before Dark Chapters 1-4 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 1 Summary: “Into the Woods”

Brother and sister Jack and Annie are in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Annie is seven years old, and Jack is eight and a half. They enter the woods just before sunset, where they discover a tree house. They’ve never seen it before, and Annie immediately decides to climb the rope ladder to enter it. Ignoring Jack’s pleas to go home, Annie calls down that the treehouse is filled with books. Jack, who loves books, begins his ascent.

Chapter 2 Summary: “The Monster”

Annie and Jack look out of the tree house’s windows together and spot their house in the distance. They look at the books surrounding them in the tree house, and Jack wonders to whom they belong.


In a book about Pennsylvania, they find a bookmark on the page about Frog Creek and the woods they’re in. Annie then hands him a book about dinosaurs, commenting that Jack should look at it. Jack warns that they shouldn’t be poking around in the books since they don’t know who owns them, but he opens the book anyway. He turns to a page with a picture of a blurred text

blurred text