Customer Reviews

Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries

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Having loved all of Don Brown's previous work, I was happy to see that this work was highly praised by Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier in the New York Times Book Review. Rare Treasure was even better than the first books: historically accurate, engaging, and beautifully illustrated. Brown is able to write simply and humanistically about remarkable people, in a way that allows the young reader to relate. He spoke at my daughters' elementary school, and both kids and parents are still talking about his work. Bravo! Don Brown, write more!

I have used this book (and others by Don Brown) to support a "Famous People" unit I teach in my 2nd grade classroom. I love the illustrations in this book and the inspiring and interesting text. This book would be especially (but certainly not exclusively) appealing for children interested in prehistoric times.

What a lovely story and beautiful illustrations. Mary Anning provides a great female role model (especially given her time in history). I am always thrilled to find great books about true, historical events and people. My two girls were both captured by the story and illustrations - they often ask "did this really happen?" of books we read - it was great to be able to say YES! This book is a treasure indeed.

Mary Anning, like so many famous and influential people, had a difficult childhood. Impoverished from birth, she and her brother looked for fossils to help support the family. And when she was grown, she continued to do so.

The field of paleontology was very, very young when Anning entered it, and she was influential in many of the important discoveries that were made then - and now, even. However, because of her sex she's never received much recognition from the rest of the world.

This book is clear and concise, covering her life from early childhood to adulthood. The artwork is simple enough, and the language should be easy for children to grasp. I got this book from my Secret Santa over at LibraryThing, and I intend to buy more books by this author.

One note - a commenter below said that it was untrue that Mary Anning "read her science" because there wasn't any paleontology to read yet! I agree that the sentence was unclear, however, a little research indicates that she read books on zoology and biology to help her gain an understanding of what she was unearthing, as well as papers on fossils by the few people who had started to write them at that point.

This is an inspirational story beautifully told. Kids will love the story brought to life with Don Brown's luminous illustrations. My 4-year old dinosaur-crazed nephew loves this story and the pictures as much as his older sisters. Another excellent book from Don Brown.

This is a wonderful story about a heroine with courage and scientific curiosity. It was great for my 7 year old - she got lots of good questions about science answered. The illustrations were colorful and really worked well with the story.

My 4 year old son and 6 year old daughter just love the book. It's a great inspiration.

Mary Anning was born to a poor family and grew up on Great Britain's southern shores. Her cabinetmaker father helped support his family by finding and selling fossils from the Jurassic period which were abundant in that area. He died when Mary was only eleven, but she'd learned his fossil finding skills. Mary is credited with finding the first ichthyosaur fossils when she was eleven year old. This book, by Don Brown, as wonderful as the others he's done about amazing women, shows young readers Mary's childhood and the hardships she had to rise above. It's a perfect book for any dinosaur loving child. After all, they should know how we know about the great beasts that roamed the earth so long ago.

Like Mr. Brown's other books, this is written for a child a bit older than my son's almost three years, but we, Devon and I, go over this book a lot and when he is reading, and the good Lord willing, that won't be too much longer. This is one of the books he's going to be reading. If you've got a young child and you want to open the world of reading to him or her, you cannot go wrong with a book written and illustrated by Don Brown.

The illustration of a boy carrying an ichthyosaur skull instantly put me off - NOT POSSIBLE then "She studied her science books." HUH - there was not yet a science of Paleontology. Mary was entirely self taught. If you have a budding paleontologist in the family choose Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon instead it's better written and much better illustrated.