Author Anne Ylvisaker knows from experience that children love difficult words.

When the Weekly last wrote about Anne Ylvisaker in 2012, she was 12 years into both her career as a children’s book author and being a Monterey resident (before 2007, she lived and worked as a teacher in Minnesota). Back then, she had just finished her yellow-doored writing studio near her house; it has a bird nest, treetop view and the light is so beautiful here in the afternoon, she says, that often her best writing is done at the end of the workday. When she leaves her yellow door open, hummingbirds fly in.

Ylvisaker has now published five novels and has many more projects in the works. Most of her books are for mid-grade readers, but this new one – Iamasaurus, available April 12 – targets a younger population.

The first notes on the Iamasaurus project date to 2013, Ylvisaker says, recalling she once volunteered in a classroom in Salinas and heard a fourth-grader worrying about having something spiky growing on his back. His little friend explained she just discovered his spine for him.

“When I was teaching, I noticed that what children love about dinosaurs is the ability to say complicated words,” Ylvisaker says. She decided they will likely take similar pleasure in learning and saying weird-sounding words for human body parts. Plus, dinosaurs and humans share many of the same body parts – maxillae, mandibles, clavicles and ribs; scapulas, humeri, tibias and fibs.

“Iamasaurus. I am noodlevorous,” the book starts. “One of the genus Ridiculorous. Mothers abhor us. Babies adore us. We romp and we stomp and we chomp on the floras.”

A book on body part science that was written to be read aloud, is how Ylvisaker describes her upcoming publication. “I love the sound, the rhythm, the music of words,” she says. Writing for really young readers, “there is also the challenge of writing in fewer words,” she adds.

When she was still a teacher, Ylvisaker would read to her young students every day and says that – along with her own childhood reading experiences – informs her process as a writer.

“Younger readers are just captivated by language and by the story,” she says. “They are not jaded yet, but they will put the book down if they don’t like it.”

Iamasaurus by Anne Ylvisaker, with illustrations by Mark Hoffmann, will be available online and in local bookstores April 12. More at anneylvisaker.com.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the following correction and clarification. Anne Ylvisaker was a classroom volunteer, not a substitute teacher, during the conversation recalled here. An earlier version of this story stated she was a few years into her writing career in 2012; at that time, she was 12 years in.