The story that Chevalier creates of the friendship of the two women is truly magnificent. The difference in age and class causes many obstacles for women to communicate and there are major rifts between them, which left me wondering how they would cope, how they would resolve their differences. And in the end, whether they would manage to be able to rely on each other when everything they had worked for was put at risk and depended on their friendship. Conybeare, William (1824), "On the Discovery of an almost perfect Skeleton of the Plesiosaurus", Transactions of the Geological Society of London, Geological Society of London, S2-1 (2): 381–389, doi: 10.1144/transgslb.1.2.381, S2CID 129024288 , retrieved 15 January 2010 [ permanent dead link]

Mary made many other exciting discoveries, such as a flying reptile, later named the Pterodactyl, and coprolites – fossilised poo – which helped her work out what dinosaurs ate! Having taught herself geology, anatomy and scientific illustration, Mary was so highly skilled that she took important scientists fossil hunting and discussed ideas and theories with them. Mary Anning (21 May 1799– 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset in Southwest England. Anning's findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth. but this time it was as if I could see beneath the surface, and I just knew that this was something really big. Anning, her Lyme seashore, and the scientific discourse of her time are all fascinating topics for consideration. In creating the yin/yang of her dual protagonists Chevalier stretches the boundaries of historical fiction a little too far for me.In the end, it is the usual suspect, jealousy, that ends the friendship across a generation and a class divide. Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot fall in love with the same man. It leads to the eruption of their other jealousies, of course, and the many things we think but never say come out of each woman's mouth. Statue of fossil-hunting pioneer Mary Anning to be unveiled in Dorset". The Guardian. 21 May 2022 . Retrieved 21 May 2022. I have experienced a range of stimuli, and had opportunities to participate in enquiries, both collaboratively and with growing independence. I wish I had read this book, or learned something about Mary Anning, before I went to London. I saw her picture and the fossils she discovered at the Natural History Museum in London without ever realizing what a remarkable accomplishment it was. She was a poor, uneducated, working class girl whose family survived by selling "curies" (curiosities), small fossils found on the beach in Lyme Regis. She finds what she considers crocodiles with fins, but are really the first pterodactyl and ichthyosaurus discovered. If these had been uncovered by an educated or upper class man, he would have enjoyed fame and fortune. But, unmarried women in the early 1800s had little voice and no respect. The greatest fossil hunter ever known was a woman from Lyme Regis. Mary Anning's discoveries were some of the most significant geological finds of all time. They provided evidence that was central to the development of new ideas about the history of the Earth.

Every day my father would take my brother, Joseph, and I down to the beach, no matter what the weather.

De la Beche, Henry; Conybeare, William (1821), Notice of the discovery of a new Fossil Animal, forming a link between the Ichthyosaurus and Crocodile, together -with general remarks on the Osteology of the Ichthyosaurus, Geological Society of London , retrieved 10 January 2010 Lee, Benjamin (25 August 2020). "Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan fall in love in first Ammonite trailer". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 26 August 2020.