Description: "Find out how Mary Morland collected, studied, and drew fossils-and made extraordinary contributions to paleontology-before STEM fields were available to women in this fascinating picture book biography"-- Provided by publisher.
Brief description: Giselle Potter has illustrated many books, including Once Upon a Fairy Tale House by Mary Lyn Ray, Try It! by Mara Rockliff, All by Himself? by Elana K. Arnold, and Kate and the Beanstalk by Mary Pope Osborne, as well as her own Tell Me What to Dream About, This Is My Dollhouse, and The Year I Didn't Go to School, about traveling through Italy with her parents' puppet troupe when she was eight. She lives in Rosendale, New York, with her husband and two daughters. Visit her at GisellePotter.com.
Review Quotes: This lively picture-book biography introduces Mary Morland (1797-1857), whose contributions to natural history were highly unusual for a woman in early nineteenth-century England. Kurtz's amiable text poses frequent questions. . . engaging readers in the narrative as she highlights the era's strict gender constraints. As a young woman, Morland corresponded with the "famous French scientist" at the forefront of studying "ancient reptiles" (the term dinosaur hadn't been coined yet), impressing him with her scientific drawings and specimens. After marrying "England's best fossilist," Morland continued to make drawings to accompany her husband's writing; it was Morland's illustrations of Megalosaurus fossils her husband presented to the Geological Society of London (as a woman, Morland wouldn't have been welcome at the gathering). Potter's soft-toned watercolor illustrations are a good match for the conversational text; one especially effective double-page spread shows Morland and family in their unconventional "household of chaos" teeming with books, animals, fossils, and nine children. And "is that a pony running around the table with three of Mary's laughing children on its back? Yes. Yes, it is."--Horn Book "March / April 2026"