Tales of the Prehistoric World: Adventures From the Land of the Dinosaurs by Kallie Moore

For dinosaur aficionados, Tales of the Prehistoric World is book filled with some of the most interesting fossil discoveries over the last two hundred years or so.

Tales of the Prehistoric World opens with information on the Geologic Time Scale which geologists have devised to organize the previous four and half million years of Earth history and brief descriptions of the the five major extinctions that occurred during this time.

Chapter One The Beginning presents a description of two billion years of the PreCambrian when life was just getting started. Moore then quickly moves into the Paleozoic Era in Chapter Two when all of the major animal groups appeared in the Cambrian, around 500 million years ago. Life moved onto land from the ocean and a supercontinent named Pangea also formed. Moore includes the discoveries in the Burgess Shale, a story about the largest trilobite, the age of armored fish, and the appearance of the giant arthropods (insects) of the Carboniferous and Permian.

 

Chapter Three is all about the Age of Reptiles which includes the reign of the dinosaurs during the Jurassic. After explaining the formation of Pangea, Moore highlights the first giant dinosaurs, the sauropods (think Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus) and goes on to describe many interesting and unusual fossil finds, each one increasing our knowledge about dinosaurs. Of course no discussion of dinosaurs would be complete without an entry on Tyrannosaurus Rex. Several famous fossil hunters are also featured including Mary Anning considered  and the rivalry between Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. This chapter ends with the currently accepted theory of the cause of the demise of the dinosaurs.

In Chapter Four, Moore explores the post-dinosaur world.The Cenozoic began 66 million years ago and is the Era we currently live in. After the demise of the dinosaurs, with the exception of those who would evolve into birds, the age of mammals. Many other animals grew to enormous sizes such at Titanoboa. Primates evolved and from them our ancestors developed. There were a series of ice ages that changed the way the continents looked.

Discussion

Tales of the Prehistoric World focuses on describing some of the more interesting dinosaur fossil discoveries in the last one hundred and fifty years and how those discoveries have helped scientists piece together the reign of the dinosaurs.

To help younger readers understand where dinosaurs fit into the history of our planet, Kallie Moore, a paleontologist, begins with what geologists and paleontologists believe they know about the beginning of life on Earth. The development of life, from single celled organisms to increasingly more complex ones is presented until the Age of Reptiles in which many different types of dinosaurs and how we came to learn about them are featured. The stories after the demise of the dinosaurs are short and sweet, ending abruptly with the Last Mammoth.

Many unusual dinosaur fossils are featured including a frozen reptile fossil found in Antarctica, unique dinosaurs from prehistoric China, the gemstone dinosaurs of Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, Australia, the remarkable story of the lost and then found again fossils of Spinosaurus, the Egg Mountain site in Montana, the unsolved questions about triceratops, and of course the infamous Tyrannosaurs Rex.

The one drawback to this book is the sometimes uninspiring artwork that accompanies each story. Digitally created, the illustrations at times can be confusing as to what they are attempting to portray. With so many fascinating stories that use many correct terms for various dinosaurs, the illustrations simply aren't up to the same level. For example, one story, The Seafaring Ankylosaur is about the  discovery of an almost complete anklyosaur from the Millenium Mine, a huge oil sand quarry in northern Alberta in March, 2011. Shawn Funk, a heavy-equipment operator was digging in the quarry when he noticed a change in coloration and texture of the rocks. His excavator had already chewed off the tail and back end of the fossil. Funk contacted his supervisor who then reached out to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. When geologists arrived they realized that Funk had discovered the fossil remains of a dinosaur. This fossil specimen was particularly special because it had fossilized features like skin that are normally not preserved. For some reason, Moore doesn't mention the location of this remarkable discovery ( oil sands outside of Fort McMurray) that received much press and the accompanying small map showing the location of the fossil discovery in Northern Alberta is meaningless without any labels. (During the time the ankylosaurus lived, North America was split by a large, inland sea.) Was this just a general oversight or was the location of the discovery in the environmentally contentious oil sands to blame?Because the recovered fossil is so unique, a photograph accompanying this story would have been so much more engaging.

There is also no information about the author, Kallie Moore, except in the introduction to the book where she identifies herself as a paleontologist, nor about the illustrator, Becky Thorns. An online search reveals that Moore is the Fossil Librarian, at the University of Montana. 

Still, readers interested in dinosaurs will find Tales of the Prehistoric a great overview of just how much we've learned about dinosaurs over the past one hundred years.

Book Details:

Tales of the Prehistoric World: Adventures From the Land of the Dinosaurs by Kallie Moore
New York: St. Martin's Press
159 pp.

The First Dinosaur by Ian Lendler

The First Dinosaur tells the remarkable story of how scholars and scientists came to unravel the mystery of ancient life on Earth and to discover the dinosaur. The First Dinosaur traces the journey, step by step by telling the story of how the first four bones of the first dinosaur, Megalosaurus were found and ended up as part of a collection of fifteen bones in total. But within that story are multiple other stories of men and one woman who worked tirelessly to unravel the story of the Earth's past.

The Megalosaurus story begins with the discovery of a bone, two feet long and weighing twenty pounds by workers in a quarry in Oxfordshire, England in 1676. Dr. Plot, a chemistry professor at Oxford University, did not know that he was looking at the bone from an extinct animal that was in fact the first dinosaur, Megalosaurus. At this time, no one knew that reptiles of enormous size once roamed the Earth. The remains of animals, dug up out of quarries weren't really understood. They were called "formed stones" and people did not know where they came from, what they were or how they were formed.

To try to understand what he was given, Plot compared his bone with that of an elephant and saw that it was much larger. He believed it may have come from a race of giant humans. What he did do was record his observations for future scientists, measuring, describing and drawing the unusual bone in his book, The Natural History of Oxfordshire. 

In 1666, an enormous white shark was caught by fisherman in the Mediterranean Sea. Florence had become a learning center of science, so the Grand Duke of the city ordered it to be brought to his city. The Grand Duke Ferdinand de' Medici had created the Accademia del Cimento or "school of experiments" in 1657. It was the beginning of the Scientific Revolution and Florence was the center of new scientific endeavours. It embodied new way of thinking about the world. Previously "many European scholars believed that all human knowledge was contained in a few books, such as the Holy Bible." The students and professors of the Accademia  were the first to use Galileo's scientific method of observing and questioning.

Nicolaus Steno, a master dissectionist who dissected human cadavers to learn the secrets of the human body, was invited by Grand Duke Ferdinand to the Accademia. Steno, in his dissection of the shark head, noted that the teeth in the shark were similar to the "tongue stones" found by the thousands in Malta. In his book about the shark dissection, Steno wrote that the tongue stones were shark teeth, connecting the living animal with the remains of once living animals in the ground. He was the first to determine WHAT fossils are - the remains of animals and plants. And in fact, we now know that "tongue stones" are teeth from megalodons, giant prehistoric sharks that lived millions of years ago.

Robert Hooke, a scientist who improved many instruments such as the microscope, read Steno's book and was fascinated. Hooke was the first person to apply the scientific method by working in a laboratory and running experiments.  Hooke published a book, Micrographia, of his drawings of the natural world as seen through the microscope. His observations led him to theorize that fossils or "formed stones" might be the result of a process he called "Petrifaction".

In seventeenth century Europe and England, the idea of extinction, that entire species of animals and plants could die out was not considered possible. This was because the Bible was taken literally and it was thought that all the animals currently alive on the Earth had been there from the beginning of a world that was believed to be 6000 years old. However, Hooke, through his studies of fossils, began to consider the possibility that the past might look very different from the present and that fossils were the clue to helping understand the past. 

Collecting fossils was a pastime of the aristocrats that had begun several hundred years earlier. These fossils became a type of entertainment kept in a "cabinet of curiosities". Eventually a large museum, the Ashmolean Museum, housing a huge collection of fossils and "curiosities" opened at Oxford University and was overseen by Dr. Plot. The fascination with fossils created a booming industry in which fossils were dug up and sold by quarry workers in Oxford.

In 1699, Dr. Edward Llwyd saw a large tooth for sale in the window of a quarry worker's house in Stonesfield, a small town outside of Oxford. The quarries in this area were rich with fossils and this fossil tooth was different - it was the type of tooth used to rip flesh. It was in fact, the second Megalosaurus fossil and it came to be stored at the Ashmolean Museum. 

At this time many scientists were struggling to understand what was called "the Seashell Problem". Many fossilized fish skeletons and sea shells were found in rocks well above sea level, in mountains and even deserts. How could this be? To solve the seashell problem scientists needed to understand "Where do fossils come from?" and "Why are they found where they are?" Nicolas Steno in searching for answers to these questions went to Malta where the tongue stones were found and through observation developed what came to be known as Steno's First Law of Super-Position: "...rocks form in flat layers on top of one another." This meant that the oldest rocks formed the bottom layers. So how to account for younger rocks that contained seashells?

To answer these questions meant that scientists had to reconsider the time frame of the Earth. In the early 1700's calculations by James Ussher, an archbishop of the Church of Ireland determined that the Earth was formed on Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C. But more and more, the evidence in the rocks did not support the biblical view of life on Earth. Scholars had turned to the Bible for answers and believed that Noah's Flood was the explanation.  However, some scholars began to think differently and offered strange and unusual theories to explain the seashell problem. 

By this time, the third fossil unknowingly belonging to the Megalosaurus was purchased by Sir Christopher Pegge. It was a large jawbone with some intact teeth and it too ended up in the Ashmolean Museum.

The next major development came with the birth of the Industrial Revolution and the use of coal to run factories. With the construction of canals to transport coal to factories in the cities, William Smith, an engineer was able to map the layers of rock that were exposed with each excavation. Smith came to recognize the same layers or strata as he called them, that he had noticed during his work in the Mearns Pit coal mine. Smith began mapping the strata all over England using the fossils he found in each layer and eventually created a geological map of England. This process took him 14 years. The importance of Smith's work is that he "understood that the strata and their fossils were telling a story" of the past in England.

Each new discovery simply generated more questions: "Why did each strata start and stop?...What causes these eras to come to an end?...What happened to the animals who were alive when the end came?..." From this point on, Lendler follows the story into France where revolution let to drastic social change and new ideas about the natural world. One key idea was proposed by renowned scientist Georges Culvier: life on Earth experienced extinctions on a catastrophic scale.

As more fossils were discovered, scientists began to realize the world was much older than they had ever thought, and that there was a world before humans and before that a world even before mammals. William Buckland, Mary Anning, Gideon Mantell, Richard Owen and Charles Lyell would all work in their own way to change forever how we think about the past.

It would be Culvier, with his brilliant ability to identify a collection of fifteen bones at the Ashmolean Museum, as a new type of land reptile that had never been seen before. This was the Megalosaurus. The discovery would be William Buckland's to announce to the scientific community. The age of dinosaurs had begun again....

Discussion

The First Dinosaur is detailed and fascinating account of how scientists came to discover dinosaurs. To do so required a monumental shift in how scientists viewed our world and our place in the world and how we viewed the past. 

Ian Lendler takes readers on a 200 year journey from the first known discovery of what would eventually be identified as a dinosaur bone to the coining of the word "dinosaur" by Richard Owen and and exhibition of the first dinosaurs at the Crystal Palace in London. Along this journey, young readers will meet many of the major players, who not only worked long arduous hours searching for fossils, but who often struggled for years to have their efforts recognized. In some cases, such as Mary Anning, their contributions would take centuries to be recognized. 

His portrayal of the main players offers interesting perspectives on characters such as William Buckland, Gideon Mantell, Richard Owen and Mary Anning. Young readers will find each person comes alive on the pages of The First Dinosaur. There is William Buckland whose over-the-top personality  included eating every kind of animal he could find. Gideon Mantell whose obsession with fossils saw him lose both money and family while making fantastic contributions to science. Richard Owen whose hatred of Mantell led him to actively work against this good man even after Mantell's death. And Mary Anning who discovered three of the dinosaurs on exhibit at the Crystal Palace but whose enormous contributions to paleontology went unrecognized for 200 years. Lendler also touches on the relationships many of these men had with one another and how the class structure in England influenced scientific endeavours.

One of the more interesting aspects Lendler features is the move away from a biblical perspective that early geologists and paleontologists had to make. In the seventeenth century man's place in the cosmos was based heavily on what was taught in the Bible. But the Bible is not a scientific work but rather an account of man's relationship with God. This was not the view of the Bible in the seventeenth century because it was considered a history of the world with the most important events recorded. Galileo was the first to challenge the way man would think about himself in the universe. For many scientists such as Richard Owen, there was no reconciling the biblical version with these new ideas. For others like William Buckland, who spent his life trying to prove Noah's flood, the new ideas prevailed.

Lendler touches on the effects revolutions played in the discovery of dinosaurs, including the Scientific Revolution, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. He shows how these revolutions changed society and brought about different ways of thinking.

While there is a much detail in this book that might bog down younger readers, Lendler entices his readers with plenty of interesting photographs, illustrations done in pen, ink and digital medium and sidebars of information. There is a Bibliography, an Index, and Lendler includes an Epilogue which tells what happened to the major players in the quest for the first dinosaur. The First Dinosaur is a must read for those who are interested in dinosaurs and the past. 

Book Details:

The First Dinosaur by Ian Lendler
Toronto: Margaret K. McElderry Books     2019
220 pp.

Prehistoric Dinosaurs, Megalodons, and Other Fascinating Creatures of the Deep Past by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

Prehistoric Dinosaurs takes readers on a journey backwards in time beginning with our own epoch, the Anthropocene.

Readers start with the Holocene epoch which began approximately 10,000 years ago and is the most recent in the Cenozoic era. During this time, humans evolved, the Earth warmed resulting in the retreat of vast ice sheets. This allowed humans to migrate and settle in most parts of the world.

The Pleistocene which began approximately 2.6 million years ago saw the most recent ice age. With climate cooling, ice caps formed at the North and South poles. There were interglacial periods when the climate warmed allowing forests and mammals to flourish. It was a time of saber tooth cats such as Smilodon. Prior to this, during the Neocene epoch (23 million to 2.6 million years ago), mammals began to dominate the Earth.

The Neocene was preceded by the Paleocene which began 66 million years ago. The climate was warm allowing large rain forests to grow and  new types of mammals to evolve. Early primates began living in the trees during this time.

Before the Paleocene, the Cretaceous Period saw the reign of the dinosaurs which were a very diverse group of animals. There were meat-eating dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurs, as well as plant-eating ones such as Spinops. Flowering plants or angiosperms also developed during the Cretaceous Period providing fruits as a food. In the sea, giant mosasaurs, turtles and ammonites flourished. Scientists have evidence that the Cretaceous experienced a mass extinction even that destroyed seventy percent of the life on Earth. The cause is believed to be an asteroid that crashed in what is now Mexico, resulting in the Earth being overwhelmed with dust and smoke, blotting out the sun. This catastrophic event is believed to be responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs.

It was during the Jurassic, 201-145 million years ago, that the largest land animals developed. These were the sauropods. During this time, the super continent known as Pangea began to break up. This began with the break up of North America from Europe and Asia and later Africa from South America.

About 252 million years ago, the ancestors of dinosaurs and other reptiles were evolving. At this time dinosaurs were small, inhabiting most areas of Pangea.

The Permian period (299- 252 million years ago) saw the formation of the supercontinent called Pangea from the collision two great land masses. At this time there were amphibians, reptiles and pre-mammals. Most were predators who ate other predators.Although there were many plants, they were consumed mostly by insects. The end of the Permian is characterized by a great extinction resulting from an extended period of widespread volcanic activity. It is believed over ninety percent of life on Earth was destroyed.

Before the Permian, the Carboniferous was a time of giant trees and towering ferns. These lush forests were filled with many different arthropods, amphibians and the first reptiles.From 419 to 359 million years ago, the Devonian period saw the development of the first trees and forests, the first insects and spiders and the first four-legged animals such as salamanders.  Prior to the Devonian, during the Silurian (443 to 419 million years ago), temperatures on Earth were slowly rising, allowing new life forms to develop. The first fish with jaws developed allowing predation to occur, as well as the evolution of eurypterids ("scorpion-like arthropods) which could grow to be very large.

In the Ordovician (485 to 443 million years) most life existed in the oceans. Snails, clams, nautiloids, trilobites and conodonts as well the world's first fish lived in the water. This period was characterized by the expansion of coral reefs across the world. The period before the Ordovician is called the Cambrian and this era saw the explosion of life on Earth. This sudden increase in life forms is called the "Cambrian Explosion". Trilobites, a primitive arthropod, dominated the Cambrian period which is sometimes referred to as the "Age of Trilobites".

Finally, the period before the Cambrian is known as the Ediacaran, some 4.6 billion to 541 million years ago. The amazing story of life on Earth began during this time and little is known about the creatures who lived during this phase.


Discussion

In Prehistoric Dinosaurs, Megalodons and Other Fascinating Creatures of the Deep Past, author Zoehfeld has chosen to tell the story of life on Earth beginning with the modern epoch of the Anthropocene (which we are now living in) and moving backwards through time to the very beginning. This makes it difficult to fully understand how life developed from simpler forms to more complex ones, how the climate and the land masses changed over time and how catastrophic events shaped life and the world afterwards. Therefore, it is recommended that readers start at the back of this book and read backwards to the front! Reading in this way works superbly, making the timeline of events more logical and understandable.

Zoehfeld's simple text gives readers a good understanding of the changes that occurred through each period and there are detailed, full colour illustrations which provide a sense of what the Earth may have looked like during each time period as well as the creatures that could be found in the seas and on land. The author includes many interesting facts for each period, and sets aside small areas on each page to explain certain events or to provide more details. For example, there are short, simple explanations of how coal formed, supervolcanoes, how dinosaurs walked, mass extinctions, ice ages and many other topics.

This book was produced in association with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. A more concise title with a more engaging illustration on the cover is also recommended. Overall, an  interesting presentation of the development of life on Earth. However, the claim on the book's back cover, "What's the best way to see the past? From the present, of course!" didn't work for this reader!

Book Details:

Prehistoric Dinosaurs, Megalodons, and Other Fascinating Creatures of the Deep Past  by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
Greenbelt, Maryland: What on Earth Publishing   2019
45 pp.

Solving The Puzzle Under The Sea by Robert Burleigh

Marie Tharp was a geologist/mathematician/oceanographic cartographer who made a significant contribution to geology and our knowledge of the oceans. Born in 1920, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Marie spent her childhood accompanying her father who was a soil surveyor for the United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Her father's work meant much travel and changing schools frequently. In fact, Marie moved some thirty times before she was fifteen. But this travel meant that Marie saw many different landscapes and geography. Marie's father told her, "When you find your life's work, make sure it is something you can do, and most important, something you like to do."

Unsure of just what she wanted to do, Marie decided to study literature at Ohio University. Her first choice, St. John's College in Annapolis did not admit women in the late 1930's. She graduated with a degree in English and music in 1943 from Ohio University.


Wartime meant that professions previously filled by men only were now becoming more open to women. One of those professions was geology. Marie had taken a course in geology during her undergraduate years at Ohio. Looking for something more challenging, she accepted an offer to enter the masters petroleum geology program at the University of Michigan.

Marie worked as a petroleum geologist for Standard Oil and Gas in Tulsa, OK but eventually left because the work was unrewarding. She returned to school, obtaining a degree in Mathematics from the University of Tulsa.

Seeking more fulfilling and challenging work, Marie began working at Columbia University in 1948 as a research assistant to Dr. Maurice "Doc" Ewing. Marie worked at what is now called the Lamont Geological Laboratory. Her job was to help his graduate assistants, one of whom was Bruce Charles Heezen. Heezen had begun mapping the ocean floor in 1947.

At this time, priority was given to mapping the sea floor using sonar soundings because the military thought submarine warfare might be the next threat. Unfortunately, at this time, because she was a woman, Marie Tharp was not allowed onto the navy vessels doing the mapping. Instead, she worked in the lab plotting the sonar soundings by hand. Marie's educational background proved to be of considerable value because her work required a knowledge of both geology and mathematics. She organized the sonar data and converted it into maps and profiles of the sea floor. Later on this work would be done by computers but in the 1950's it was done by Marie Tharp.

Tharp and Heezen's map of the ocean floor.

Gradually a profile of the ocean floor began to appear and it was unlike anything anyone had imagined. Instead of a flat expansive ocean floor, Tharp's maps showed ridges and valleys. In fact, the ocean profile of the North Atlantic suggested a rift running essentially through the middle of the ocean between North America and Europe which Marie thought might be similar to the rift valley found in Africa.

In 1915 Alfred Wegener had published his theory that all the continents were once part of a giant landmass which he called Pangaea. He based his idea on the fact that fossils, strata and landmasses were similar between the continents and that the landmasses seemed to fit together. The theory was roundly ridiculed partly because Wegener's mechanism for continental drift was wrong and because scientists did not have enough knowledge at this time about the sea floor or subsurface geology.

Armed with this knew perspective of the ocean floor, Tharp suspected that this ridge was where the continents were moving apart - in other words it seemed to support Wegener's idea of drifting continents - the theory of plate tectonics. Eventually mounting evidence in the form of earthquakes along the rift zone validated Marie Tharp's theory and her maps became one of the supports for plate tectonics.

Marie Tharp went on to have a stellar career at Lamont-Doherty. She and colleague Heezen continued to map the entire ocean floor and produced a comprehensive map in 1977. Eventually her contributions to geology and oceanography were recognized but not until she was much older. Tharp passed away in 2006.

One of Raul Colon's beautiful illustrations.

Solving the Puzzle Under The Sea tells Marie Tharp's story from her perspective, using a first person narrative. Burleigh's text captures Marie's interest in the world around her as a young person, her struggles to be taken seriously as a woman scientist and the sense of discovery and accomplishment as she creates her maps of the ocean and makes an astonishing proposal - one that  forever changes how we view our planet.

Raul Colon's realistic illustrations rendered in watercolors, Prismacolor pencils and lithograph pencils on Arches paper, accompany Marie's narrative. Marie Tharp's story, told in this attractive picture book format serves as a reminder to young girls that a career in science is both attainable and rewarding.

Burleigh includes a detailed biography at the back as well as a list of words and their definitions as well as a bibliography and a section titled "Things To Wonder About and Do" which encourages young readers to explore the world around them.

Solving The Puzzle Under The Sea is well-written, sumptuously illustrated and a must-read for those young readers interested in learning about the women who have gone before in the world of science, and for teachers, librarians and parents wishing to encourage a career in science.

Book Details:

Solving The Puzzle Under The Sea by Robert Burleigh
New York: Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers     2016

 map credit: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/06/08/images/HeezenTharp_900.jpg

Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries by Don Brown

Rare Treasure tells the story of the greatest "fossilist" of all time - Mary Anning of Lyme Regis in Dorset, England. Mary was born on May 21, 1799 to a cabinetmaker who supplemented his income by selling the strange finds from the fossil beds by the town. Although Mary's parents, Richard and Molly had ten children, only Mary and her brother Joseph survived to adulthood.

When Mary was a toddler, she was with a group of women watching an equestrian show when a storm blew up. The women took shelter beneath a tree when it was struck by lightning. Only Mary survived. This event seemed to mark a change in Mary who grew into a lively child full of curiosity.  Although Mary learned to read and write, she never received much education. The Anning family was poor and because of war on the continent, (England was at war with France), there were often food shortages.

Lyme Regis soon became a tourist mecca for the English looking to get away from the polluted, dirty cities of the north.  Richard Anning took Mary and Joseph with him as he scoured the limestone and shale cliffs around Lyme Regis looking for fossils. They would then set up a table in the town and sell their finds to tourists.

In November 1810, Mary's father passed away, leaving the family in even more serious poverty. To supplement their income from the parish relief they received Mary continued to hunt for fossils on the cliffs of Lyme Regis. Over the years she built up a substantial business and a reputation.

Her first major find was in 1811 when she was twelve years old. Over the period of several months she and Joseph dug up a fossilized skeleton of an what would later be called an ichthyosaur. Other substantial finds included a pleisosaur  in 1823, a pterosaur in 1828 and a squaloraja in 1829.

Although Mary Anning had received little schooling she read scientific papers and even studied the anatomy of living creatures to better understand the fossils she was finding. She lived at a time when women had few rights, the could not vote and were not allowed entry into universities. Although she was often not given full credit for her discoveries, eventually her contributions to the field of paleontology was recognized by several prominent geologists of the time. Mary Anning's discoveries had a profound influence on how humans thought about the planet and its past. At the turn of the century, the belief that the Earth and everything in it was created in six days by God was common. However, the fossils that Mary Anning discovered were of creatures that no longer existed and they made scientists rethink the past and how the present came to be.

Mary Anning's sketch of a Plesiosaur, 1824

Rare Treasure is a well written, short account of Mary Anning's life. Brown is a capable storyteller, capturing the more important parts of Mary Anning's life; her family's struggles with poverty, the dangerous work of searching for fossils on the shore, the wonderful discoveries she made, and her desire to understand what she found.Although some of the obstacles Anning encountered are omitted, Brown does emphasize that Mary Anning came to be highly regarded by many prominent scientists of the day including William Buckland and Richard Owens.  The pen, ink and watercolour illlustrations of Don Brown are a wonderful supplement to the story of this intelligent and courageous English woman.

Rare Treasure is recommended for young readers, especially girls interested in dinosaurs, earth science or science in general.

Book Details:

Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries by Don Brown
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company     1999

Finding Wonders by Jeannine Atkins

Finding Wonders is a delightful novel-in-verse about three women who lived in previous centuries and who were interested in the natural world around them. During the time these women lived, people had very superstitious notions about the world in which they lived. Often women who showed any interest in what has become to be identified as science were considered strange at best and witches at worst. Atkins profiles three women: Maria Sibylla Merian, Mary Anning, and Maria Mitchell

In the first story, The Artist's Daughter, Maria Merian was the step-daughter of an artist and lived in Frankfurt, Germany her parents, two older brothers and sister and their apprentice Andreas. Her story begins in 1660. Thirteen-year-old Maria is fascinated by caterpillars who mysteriously change from worms into moths and butterflies. Maria's inquisitiveness is considered different by her family; Andreas warns her against touching the caterpillar and seventeen-year-old Sarah tells Maria she's too old to be crawling under gooseberry bushes and in the mud.

When she goes to visit her Uncle Hans in the silk mill, Maria questions him about where the silkworms come from. It is a common belief that they come out of the mud and that they cause terrible things to happen. Hans won't directly answer Maria but gives her a few silkworms to take home and tells her to make sure they have fresh mulberry leaves every day.  Maria hides the silkworms in the attic and spends her time between chores observing the worms. She watches them eat, molt and spin a cocoon.
"Can watching what caterpillars become
show Maria where they come from?
How long must she wait
to see what will emerge?"
Maria's discovery opens her eyes to a world few understand.

The second story, Secrets in Stones is about Mary Anning who lived from 1799 to 1847 in Lyme Regis, England. Her story begins in 1809 when many discoveries are being made and the origin of life on Earth is being debated. Ten-year-old Mary and her father scour the sea cliffs near their home for the strange "curiosities" -
"stones with pictures of creatures or plants that seem
scratched by impossibly sharp needles or nails."

Mary's father sends her home as a rainstorms sweeps the coast, and returns hours later, badly injured from a fall when the cliff crumbles during the storm. As her family slips further into poverty due to her father's injuries, Mary begins scouring the cliffs for the curious stones to sell. After the death of her father and her baby brother, Mary and Joseph make an amazing find in the cliffs:
"A head with a pointed snout or beak is as long as her arm.
Scrambled, shuffled teeth make a jagged line.
Above the mouth is an eye, sun-shaped,
like those of fish or birds, with a patterned rim around."
It is a find that will change the mankind's ideas of Earth's history forever, opening a window to life in the distant past.

The third story, Many Stars, One Comet is about Maria Mitchell who lived in the 19th century. The story begins when Maria is twelve years old and her older brother Andrew leaves on a whaling ship. The Mitchells are Quakers who live an unassuming life, not partaking in some of the finer aspects of life such as frills on bonnets, music, parties or dancing. Maria's father has a telescope on the roof of their home, where he maps the stars. Maria has grown to love the stars and she spends evenings on the roof helping him with calculations. When her father mends chronometers, he teaches Maria how to repair them. When her father learns that the king of Denmark is offering money and a gold medal to anyone using a telescope to discover a new comet, Maria is intrigued. Her father tells her it is unlikely anyone in America will discover a comet mainly because telescopes are better in Europe and night falls there first. But Maria's persistence over the years pays off when she makes an amazing discovery.

Discussion

Atkins has told the stories of three girls who grew into women scientists as a result of their determination to satisfy their curiosity about the world around them. In Finding Wonders, the author employs free verse which allows her to create an engaging account of these young girls as they explore the natural world. Atkins states in her note at the back, "I chose to write in verse because of the permission it gives me to fill in what disappeared." Atkins wanted to write about these specific women because "...While some facts have been passed along, many memories of these women have turned faint. History tends to capture moments of discovery, so we miss much of what came before and after, including common experiences that may bond us."  While young women today might remember Marie Curie, Roberta Bondar and Rosalind Franklin, it's important to remember those who came before and to understand the obstacles they overcame.

Each of these young girls in Finding Wonders is encouraged to explore her world by her father. Maria Merian's uncle and her father encourage her to study and record her observations of the life cycle of the silkworm despite the superstitions of both her family members and society and the notion that such activities are not appropriate for young women. Mary Anning accompanies her father as he searches the cliffs for strange rocks which she later learns are called fossils, and Maria Mitchell is taught by her father how to use a telescope, to do important mathematical calculations, to set chronometers and he even provides her with her own workroom at home.

Each young girl must surmount obstacles either from their own families, circumstances or societal expectations. For example, Mary Anning isn't initially recognized as the one who finds the fossilized ichthyosaur but she persists in digging out this fossil and soon finds many more fossils including the first plesiosaur. Maria Mitchell works against the restrictions of her Quaker faith, while Maria Merian has to deal with the belief that a woman collecting insects and wading in ponds might be a witch.

Atkins free verse is beautiful and expressive. Atkins has Maria Mitchell describe her love of mathematics in a way that is realistic:
"She loves the elegance and economy of mathematics,
which can pry open the view of the heavens,
splinter ideas that have been held for thousands of years.
She's fond of formulas that mirror
nature's love of curving lines,
seen in seashells, plants that rise and bend back,
birds building nests, orbits of planets,
even truth, which spirals in and out of sight."

Atkins includes a detailed "A Note from the Author" at the back as well as a Selected Bibliography for further reading which young readers will want to check out. What would have greatly enhanced the stories in this fictionalized account is pencil drawings throughout. Finding Wonders' beautiful cover is only the first of many reasons why young readers should check out this book.


Book Details:

Finding Wonders by Jeannine Atkins
Toronto: Atheneum  Books For Young Readers     2016
195 pp.