Mary Anning's Curiosity by Monica Kulling

Kulling details Mary’s smarts, focus, passion and patience in her hunt and then year-long excavation of the ‘giant crocodile’. We teach all (or maybe most depending on the country) young students about Darwin, so why aren’t we teaching them about the groundbreaking discoveries of this woman who predates him? This is a gripping story of a mighty young girl, her passion, perseverance and her unique contribution to paleontology. I have a degree in anthropology, have participated in water sports in Lyme Regis, and am a big fan of Mary Anning, a historical figure who deserves more visibility. A short historical novel aimed at elementary age readers, but utterly accessible for all ages. In 1811, Mary, aged 12, along with her elder brother Joe, discover the fossilized eye that would lead to the finding of the entire skeleton of what would later be named an Ichthyosaurus. Mary’s curiosity is fueled by the desire to find the town’s mythical giant crocodile in the cliffs above the beach, and help pay off the weighty family debt. While a super smart student, Mary quits school despite her mother’s resistance, to pursue her eccentric fossil-hunting father’s passions along the seashore in Lyme Regis. Sadly, young Mary’s father dies following an accident and the family falls into severe debt. She grows up sturdy and strong, and from a young age she follows her dad and brother out onto the beach to hunt for fossils. In the early pages, we meet a poor family, and a father with a passion for finding and selling fossils from the local beach. These opening lines set the scene for the first of many extraordinary things about Mary Anning. While most of Mary’s siblings die very young, as a baby, Mary herself survives a lightning strike that kills the three adults she is with. Mary Anning’s Curiosity is set over 200 years ago in a small coastal town in the south of England.

People left their tasks to see horses jumping and riders performing stunts. More than two hundred years ago, a traveling fair came to the seaside town of Lyme Regis on the south coast of England. Themes: fossils, paleontology, scientific discovery, mighty girls

Mary Anning's Curiosity by Monica Kulling