The Fossil Girl

Brighton, Catherine

3.63

119 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 0761314687 ISBN 13: 9780761314684

Publisher: Millbrook Pr, 1999

In simple cartoon style, tells the story of a twelve-year-old English girl's discovery in 1811 of an ichthyosaurus skeleton.

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 2-4-In this bicentennial year of Anning's birth, Brighton presents a comic-strip style account of the British paleontologist's legendary childhood discovery of the first ichthyosaur skeleton. Like Laurence Anholt, whose picture book biography tells Mary's childhood in Stone Girl, Bone Girl (Orchard, 1999), Brighton fictionalizes in re-creating the amazing find. Her spare telling features a determined, somewhat older-looking Mary, her brother Joe, and their widowed mother, whose modest seaside home and curiosity shop are battered one stormy night. While Mary and Joe search for new fossil treasures to replenish their lost livelihood, they discover the enormous unknown creature embedded high in the cliff. In a scenario of derring-do, Mary mounts a crude wooden tower built by a neighbor to lower segments of the fossil. "Then, as the cart pulled away across the beach, there was a sudden CRACK-and the tower collapsed like a pack of cards!" All ends well as the children charge the townsfolk a penny a piece to see their great treasure, and Mary negotiates a selling price with the Lord of the Manor. Brighton's concluding note summarizes Anning's adult discoveries and her role in the history of science. Picture panels in a variety of groupings carry small blocks of narrative over watercolor scenes in muted tones, while dialogue balloons add bits of detail. The graphic-story format is well suited to the dramatic structure of events. Differing in details, neither Anholt nor Brighton acknowledge sources. The story is appealing in either case, and this cartoon adventure of a real-life heroine will be a fine choice for most collections.
Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

This charming volume uses comic-strip frames to depict the events leading to Mary Anning's 1810 discovery in Dorset, England, of the skeleton of an ichthyosaurus. After their father died, Mary and Joe Anning would go out in all weather to collect curiosities to sell in their mother's shop. One day, a huge storm came and ``all the curiosities were swept away.'' So they set out again, and this time they found something huge imbedded in the rocks of a tall cliff. Mary had a tower built, chipped away at the structure, lowered it down by ropes, piece by piece, and hauled it home. Long lines formed to see the discovery, and ``Mary and Joe charged each person a penny to see the curiosity. Now they could afford their first hot meal for months.'' Henry Henley, lord of the manor, told Mary that she had found the fossilized remains of a creature who lived in the sea millions of years ago. He bought it from her and had it transported to London. Brighton gives the facts surrounding Mary's fame a straightforward treatment, while making the details of her life accessible in frame after frame of atmospheric illustration. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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