If You Are A Hunter Of Fossils

Title: "If You Are A Hunter Of Fossils"
Author: Byrd Baylor
Illustrator: Peter Parnall
Ages: 3-6th grade
Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:
Fossils tell us a story about our history. In this children’s book a little girl describes what she thinks life was like in the mountain that  she discovers fossils by. The little girl escapes from reality and fantasizes about how life used to be when seas and dinosaurs ruled the land. Byrd Baylor uses words to paint a picture of previous times in history. 


I think this book is extremely well written. Byrd Baylor does a fantastic job at describing things in this book instead of just telling. For example in the line, "Here, when I find a brachiopod or mollusk or a round sea urchin, I don't just see it as it is...on a mountain locked in rock. I see it in that ancient lapping water." To me this excerpt is describing how the little girl in the book escapes from what is really there and is imagining when these animals were more then just fossils. Baylor brings to life the fossils that are in the book. 


Another example of using words to paint a picture is when Baylor writes, 
"Sometimes you even feel the long slow terror in that world when water turned to mud. It took millions of years for ocean slime and sun to fight it out but finally sunshine won. Now that sea is a mountain of rock that I climb with a shell in my hand."It is not just about finding fossils, it is about the story, and history that brought us to these fossils. I think that is the most important message in this book. We had to get here somehow and fossils provide a story of how we got here.