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Charlotte's Bones

The Beluga Whale in a Farmer's Field

Erin Rounds author Alison Carver illustrator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Tilbury House,U.S.

Published:3rd Nov '20

£7.99

Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.

Charlotte's Bones cover

In 1849, a crew building a railroad through Charlotte, Vermont, dug up strange and beautiful bones in a farmer’s field. A local naturalist asked Louis Agassiz to help identify them, and the famous scientist concluded that the bones belonged to a beluga whale. But how could a whale’s skeleton have been buried so far from the ocean? The answer—that Lake Champlain had once been an arm of the sea—encouraged radical new thinking about geological time scales and animal evolution.  

Charlotte’s Bones is a haunting, science-based reconstruction of how Charlotte died 11,000 years ago in a tidal marsh, how the marsh became a field, how Charlotte found a second life as the Vermont state fossil, and what messages her bones whisper to us now about the fragility of life and our changing Earth.

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Brilliant.

Erin Rounds’ writing feels like magic. Use this book as a mentor text to teach showing not telling, imagery, and sentence fluency. It’s also a lovely example of how to make science come to life through a narrative story.

" -- Melissa Taylor - Imagination Soup
"Extensive back matter provides details about the scientific impact of the discovery, beluga whales and other Ice Age mammals of the Champlain Valley, a glossary, and further resources. A well-researched historical narrative." -- Caroline Davis, Benicia PL - ACLNC BayViews
"  A substantial introduction to a significant North American fossil." -- Kirkus
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5 Stars   Author Erin Rounds has written a lovely, lyrical story of Charlotte’s journey and discovery accompanied by beautiful illustrations in serene colors. In addition, there are six pages of in-depth back matter to give youngsters much more background and information about this extraordinary find. The back matter includes information on other Ice Age creatures that lived in the area, a good glossary, and a list of other resources for further study. This is a winner.

" -- Rosi Hollinbeck - Manhattan Book Review

ISBN: 9780884488606

Dimensions: 257mm x 231mm x 8mm

Weight: 227g

36 pages