Customer Reviews

Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Atkins and Dooling have created a beautiful picture book that girls and boys will love. Mary Anning's story is becoming more well known now with two other recently released picture books (by Laurence Anholt and Don Brown). Dooling's illustrations are vivid, colorful, real and beautiful!

The story of Mary Anning is certainly not well known, at least in the US and outside of the field of paleantology. This book gives a perspective of what it's like to have a fascination which turns into a career. It is especially encouraging to young women who want to explore a variety of careers.

The illustrations capture a life in England at the sea in the early 1800's. Beautifully done!

My six-year-old daughter is very keen on learning about and collecting fossils. We have been devouring as many books on the subject as we can and after reading Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures: A Novel, I was hoping to find some kid-friendly books about pioneer fossil hunters.

There are several books written about Mary Anning, covering either her life's work or her youth. This book focuses on the young Mary Anning's painstaking and patient efforts in uncovering a prehistoric reptile fossil by the Lyme Regis shore. My young daughter and I were impressed by the descriptions of Anning's diligent efforts, carried out mostly in solitude. The watercolor illustrations by Michael Dooling paints a rather bleak picture of the landscape which serves to highlight Anning's solitary efforts.

Mary Anning was a pioneer of fossil discovery and her perseverance and patience serves as a great role model for young children. Also recommended are The Fossil Girl: Mary Anning's Dinosaur Discovery by Catherine Brighton; Stone Girl Bone Girl: The Story of Mary Anning by Laurence Anholt; and, Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries by Don Brown.

With the loving support of her mother, and the admonition of her deceased father to perservere in her quest for "curiosities", Mary Anning went on to discover ancient fossils which earned her the friendship and respect of many well-known scientists of the early 1800s. Christians and Jews will want to change the reference "millions of years" to "thousands" to be in keeping with Biblical creationism, but other than that it is a great book. It is the kind of book a young scientist will read again and again... feeling the cold, salty air as Mary digs in the sand and scrapes at the stones that fall from the cliffs of the shores of Lyme Regis, England. Her relentless curiosity and faithful endurance led to her discovery of what we now call an ichthyosaur... at the age of only eleven!