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Mary Anning, Fossil Hunter
Sally M. Walker
Illustrations by Phyllis V. Saroff
Non-fiction (Series)
Ages 7 to 10
Lerner, 2001, 1-57505-457-4
  Mary Anning lived by the sea and on many days she and her brother and father would go out looking for “curiosities” on the beaches and cliffs. These were fossils, the remains of creatures which had lived long ago. Mary’s interest in fossils was not considered proper in 1800’s England when young girls were not encouraged to learn anything about science but Mary’s father did not agree with this convention. He liked to take both his son and his daughter fossil hunting with him and so he did.
  The Annings looked for fossils because it interested them and because they were able to sell what they found. When Mary was just eleven her father died and the fossil hunting business became vital to the family’s survival. Then in 1811 Mary found a really spectacular large fossil which she sold to a museum in London. Selling the “ichthyosaur” helped pay some of the bills but poverty became a very real problem and the family struggled. Then Mary found an almost complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur and her family’s situation began to improve. Mary began to develop a reputation for being as person who know about fossils and about the creatures that once lived long ago. She was considered to be eccentric but she didn’t mind, hunting for fossils and continuing her studies of animals and plants which had died millions of years ago.
  This excellent book provides young readers with a fascinating look into the life of a woman who collected and studied fossils not just for a living but also because she was interested in studying a science which was not really open to women at that time. Courageous, curious, and willing to defy convention, Mary showed her world that a woman could have the brains and the ability to study and investigate a scientific subject.
  At the back of the book the author provides the reader with further information about Mary Anning and her times. This is one of the titles in the “One my own biographies” series. 
 

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