Red-Haired Ash Reads

This was a wonderful look at Mary Anning and her life discovering dinosaurs. At twelve, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton, an ichthyosaur, and then spent the rest of her life hunting fossils and making many incredible finds. She found the first complete plesiosaurus skeleton, found the first fossil of a dimorphodon (a pterodactyl), and found a fish fossil of a squaloraja, which is an ancestor of sharks and rays. This woman made amazing discoveries but unfortunately since she was a woman she was rarely credited with the finds and wasn’t able to join the Geological Society of London, who were in charge of naming her finds and other things. 

This book was just a fascinating look at early fossil hunting and how it changed the world. This book discusses religion heavily because finding dinosaurs challenged the idea that god created the world in seven days and brought about the idea of extinction, both of which were heavily challenged by the church. It was very interesting since I had never considered how it had impacted the world at that time. 

Mary was a fascinating woman who not only defied expectations by not marrying, she worked, she had a business, she bought her own home, she took care of her mother, and she spent her life doing what she loved, hunting fossils, even if she never got the recognition she deserved. I never knew her name before hearing about this book and it’s a shame that such a remarkable woman has mostly been forgotten by the world. 

CW: Death of multiple family members; death of a pet; cancer;  Discussions of starvation, homelessness, poverty, patriarchy, slavery, and war. 

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