Customer Reviews

Stone Girl Bone Girl: The Story of Mary Anning

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4 star:		(2)
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I can't remember a more beautifully written children's book since my children were born. The way the story was told was so simple and yet so powerful, I have no hesitation in recommending this to anyone with children. I read it to my 3 and 5 year old girls and they ask for it every night. Simply beautiful.

There are a few picture books out about Mary Anning! All of them are good, but this is THE ONE to read to younger kids! The illustrations are vibrant and colorful. The story is punchy and fun! Kids will be amazed by the story of a young girl who gets struck by lightning as an infant, survives, and as a child finds the fossil of one of the world's largest dinosaurs! It's all true! There's even a dog companion! Buy it and read it to your kids, they won't soon forget it!

They were captivated from the very opening when Mary was the only survivor of a lightening strike. The fact that Mary made her first major discovery when she was only twelve demonstrates to children that it is possible for them to achieve great/important things. My girls were so interested in paleontology after reading this book that it has spurred them on to learning more about Mary Anning, fossils and evolution. They have since gone fossil hunting and were thrilled to be just like Stone Girl, Bone Girl!

This book introduces children (and adults like me!) to an inpsirational scientist. The artwork is superb and the story of a 12 year old girl who makes an important scientific discovery is captivating. I recommend this book for any child who is interested in science, paleontology, history, or art (or who just likes a good story!)!

Stone Girl, Bone Girl tells the story of Mary Anning, an extraordinarily prolific fossil hunter born in England in 1799. When Mary began fossil hunting, she did not understand the significance of what she was finding. She was just hunting for curiosities, which she could sell to tourists in Lyme to make a bit of money for her extremely poor family.

Her first major find came at the age of 12, when she uncovered an ichthyosaur. Over the years as she continued to hunt in and around the cliffs of Lyme Regis, Mary Anning found hundreds of fossils, including plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, and several more ichthyosaurs. Although she herself never left Lyme Regis, the fossils Mary found made their way to museums worldwide and contributed to the work of many of the major scientists of the day. Among them was Charles Darwin, who used her fossils to help develop the theory of evolution, which he described in his book, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859.

The good:

I found this book nearly as interesting as my daughter, and so, didn't mind reading it to her as many times as she asked. My daughter loved that Mary Anning found her first important fossil at the tender age of 12. I love that she hunted for it despite being laughed at by the other children, and that she persisted in fossil hunting even though it was an odd thing for a woman, much less a 12-year-old girl, to do in early 19th C England. And we both enjoyed the illustrations, which are dramatic and imaginative.

What I didn't care for:

The mysticism surrounding the dog. I didn't much care for the dog being presented as the spirit of Mary's father, come to comfort her after his death and find the ichthyosaur for her. And of course, now that I know that it was really Joseph, Mary's brother who found the ichthyosaur, I like the way Anholt presented Mary's dog even less. (Joseph apparently didn't like fossil hunting and was content to allow his sister to take the credit.)

That said, many details of Mary Anning's life obviously had to be compressed or omitted altogether to fit the 24 pages allotted to it. What is told is told well, and left both of us wanting to know more about this remarkable woman. And that, in the end, is what you want a biography written for children to do.

(Review originally published on my blog: Caterpickles.com -- Scientific & Linguistic Engagement with a 4 Year Old Mind)

This book is wonderful for boys and girls (ages 3/4 through grade school) - but since we have a 3.5 year old who LOVES dinosaurs, we were especially happy to see a real life story about a fossil-hunting GIRL. This is a true life story about Mary Anning (c. 1799), an English girl, who leads a life full of dramatic events including being struck by lightening as an infant, losing her father at a young age, being found by a magical dog who has a nose for fossils, falling into poverty and then being pulled out of poverty by the fossil discoveries she makes - including the discovery of a full skeleton of an Ichthyosaurus! The illustrations are beautiful and as magical and compelling as the story. Despite the heavy story line, my daughter was uplifted by the tale of a real life girl who loved dinosaurs and hunting for fossils - inspiring! There are other books about Mary Anning, but this is the most 'picture book' of the bunch - which made it more accessible to my preschooler.