Mary Morland in the Time of Dinosaur Discovery

Gr 2-5–While Mary Morland (1797–1857) was born during a time in which girls were to be seen and seemingly not heard, she broke through those norms and explored the world around her, becoming particularly fascinated with rocks and fossils, illustrating anything that spoke to her and corresponding with scientists in the field of geology. Later in her life, she married a geologist and helped him illustrate the first ever dinosaur (before they were even called dinosaurs) but was never officially credited. This is an inspiring story of an early pioneer scientist the world should know. The artwork is fun and detailed. The first half of the book points to how unconventional Morland was in her upbringing and then gets more detailed in her adventurous life of fossils and science and raising her children to be as inquisitive as she was. While it touches on how she was not credited for her illustrations that helped scientists understand dinosaurs more, the tone is uplifting in sharing what was not as widely known as it is now. The back matter includes a list of selected sources, a list of resources for the curious, an author’s note that dives deeper into why women were often uncredited for their contributions in scientific endeavors, and shares about two others, Mary Anning and Mary Ann Mantell, who also helped uncover facts about dinosaurs.