A Bone From a Dry Sea [Mass Market Paperback]

Peter Dickinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1995

Two parallel stories present a young prehistoric female who is instrumental in advancing her people and a modern-day girl who joins her father, a paleontologist, in discovering important fossil remains in Africa. Reprint. AB. NYT. SLJ. H.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

PW's starred review commended the "gripping" narrative, in which scientific speculation, a feminist slant and a school of helpful dolphins coalesce in the tales of dual heroines born more than two million years apart. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Dickinson (AK, etc.) returns to his native Africa for an imaginative look at humanity's dawn, postulating a male-dominated tribe of ape-like hominids who depend on the sea for food, have no tools, and communicate with calls that are not yet language. (In one of several scrupulous parenthetical explanations, Dickinson apologizes for the names he gives them as a fictional convenience.) ``Li'' has a genius surpassing Edison's: she not only invents useful devices (a net to catch minnows, a splint for a broken leg) but is the catalyst for changing the nature of tribal leadership so that ``it depend[s] less upon dominance and more upon consent.'' Young and female, Li lacks conventional power; what fascinates her is solving problems--especially how to get food in the coastal environment so persuasively described; and she's clever enough not to challenge authority but to bolster it in the most benign available leader. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, modern anthropologists investigate the site, their scholarly pursuits and rivalries subtly echoing the earlier time. Each expertly crafted story builds to a suspenseful climax, but most intriguing is their eponymous link: a fragment of a dolphin's scapula found on what's now an arid upland site, with a hole that could only have been drilled by a not-quite-human hand. An engrossing portrayal of a gifted early hominid, less contrived, more convincing than--and a fascinating contrast to- -the ape with a transplanted human brain in Dickinson's Eva (1989). (Fiction. 11+) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Laurel Leaf (May 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440219280
• ISBN-13: 978-0440219286
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.5 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #593,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Bone From A Dry Sea, June 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Bone From A Dry Sea (Hardcover)

A Bone From A Dry Sea Book Review This book changed completely the way I used to look at ancient civilations and the job of archeologists on searching for the unknown. A Bone From A Dry Sea is a novel by Peter Dickinson which include two related stories that happen at different times. One is about a little girl named Li who is the thinker of her people. Her uncle, Presh, was the leader of the tribe. One day the tribe was attacked and Presh was killed. Incidently, most of the tribe was killed due to a tsunami. Li took the leadership to lead them to a safe place. On the other hand, four million years later, the sea had dried. Vinny was visiting the site where her father worked searching for the fossil remains of our ancestors. There, she was considered their "lucky pet". This young girl found a bone and observed details which weren't even noticed by famous experts. Therefore, leading the team to infer outstanding discoveries and motivatig them to excavate more. This mysterious novel was very realistic and believable. Teenagers can relate to the characters. The story as pretty well developed, still leaving some information out to keep the mystery. It was hard to get bored, there was always something new happening. The first story was too descriptive and took pages to get excited. The ending solved all problems and uncovered mysteries, still leaving a thought in our mind, challenging the author to write a continuation in the future.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Bone From A Dry Sea, October 20, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: A Bone From a Dry Sea (Mass Market Paperback)

I had to read the book "A Bone From A Dry Sea" for school and since no one else in my group wanted to read it, I ended up reading it and loving it. The book tells about the adventures of "Li" a girl who lived in Africa 4 million years ago and the story also talks about the life of a girl named "Vinny" who discovers the remains of a dolphin's shoulder blade and who also discovered some of Li's life when she visited her father in Africa.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars maginatve topic, June 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Bone From A Dry Sea (Hardcover)

Vinny has convinced her mother to let her spend summer vacation with her father in Africa. Her father, Sam, is working in an archeological site in Africa without much success. Vinny comes and accidentaly matches a pair of broken skull and Dr. Hamiska, the leader of the site, begins to call her his lucky charm . Dr. Hamiska takes her to a site without much incident and Vinny finds something that wil change history and the world view of human evolution. Millions of years earlier, in the same place a small girl in-between ape and human begins to open her mind. She lives in a Sea-ape tribe accustomed to life on the beach. Her name is Li and gradually her mind is opening up to the world around her. A large current of problems makes the tribe look to her for help and her decision will forever change the future of humanity. A Bone From A Dry Sea is an interesting view into the world of paleontology and the cornerstone of evolution from ape to human. The author chose a unique way of writing by telling the story of these two girls in separate worlds by alternating chapters. Every chapter alternates between past and present. You begin to notice that what happens in the past world is repeated in the present. For example, a male begins to battle the dominant male for power and the same kind of battle for dominance occurs with Dr. Hamiska and Vinny's father. Which goes to show that some things never change.