Gr 3-5-Huge bones unearthed more than 200 years ago on John Masten's farm in New York's Hudson River Valley led to solving the mystery the animal scientists had called "The Great Unknown." The somber-toned paintings and bare-bones text of this picture-book account follow the efforts of Charles Willson Peale to excavate enough bones from the valley's peat bogs to assemble the full body of the extinct animal now known as the mastodon. Morrison begins with a preface describing the herds of mastodons at the end of the Ice Age. Several pages into the book, the title page is followed by the momentous discovery and Peale's subsequent efforts to find the other bones. Morrison gets a bit ahead of himself, showing much of the skeleton when the first bone was unearthed. Peale's effort to drain the soggy land with a giant pump is among several intriguing scenes rendered in dark tones suggesting a long-ago time. The staccato text will challenge some readers, though the handsome scenes tell an interesting but sketchy story. Michael O. Tunnell's amusing picture book The Joke's on George (World, 1995) is more within the grasp of primary-grade readers. Janet Wilson's The Ingenious Mr. Peale (Atheneum, 1996) is a full-length biography, and James C. Giblin's The Mystery of the Mammoth Bones and How It Was Solved (HarperCollins, 1999) nicely describes the history of both Peale and the mastodon. The Great Unknown is a serviceable and sometimes eye-catching introduction for middle-grade readers.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 3-5. This picture book describes the discovery of mastodon bones on a New York farm in 1799, the unearthing of the fossils, and their purchase by Charles Willson Peale, who assembled them into a skeleton for display in his Philadelphia museum. Morrison weaves the facts into a story that not only dramatizes the intriguing events but also points out that Americans 200 years ago were troubled to think that an animal could become extinct. Supporting the story, the last page includes information about the history of Peale's mastodon skeleton, a brief bibliography, and a glossary of terms used in the text. Well-composed paintings, from portraits to landscapes to action scenes, illustrate the account. Readers too young for James Cross Giblin's excellent The Mystery of the Mammoth Bones and How It Was Solved (1999) will find this a good introduction to the subject. Carolyn Phelan
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