If You Are a Hunter of Fossils

by Byrd Baylor, Peter Parnall (Illustrator)

Millions of years have passed since the desert was ocean, but the fossils still tell its story. And if you are lucky enough to find one, the ancient past can come back to flood your imagination. Byrd Baylor's eloquent prose-poem is complemented by Peter Parnall's vivid illustrations in a book that is itself a lasting treasure.

Genres: Picture Books, Poetry, Childrens, Nonfiction, Dinosaurs

32 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1980

About the author

Byrd Baylor has always lived in the Southwest, mainly in Southern Arizona near the Mexican border. She is at home with the southwestern desert cliffs and mesas, rocks and open skies. She is comforted by desert storms. The Tohono O’odham people, previously known as the Papagos, are her neighbors and close friends. She has focused many of her writings on the region’s landscape, peoples, and values. Through her books of rhythmic prose poetry, written primarily for children, she celebrates the beauty of nature and her own feelings of rapport with it.
Byrd has written many books for children.

Her books have been honored with many prestigious children’s book awards, including the Caldecott Award and the Texas Bluebonnet Award. All of her books are full of the places and the peoples that she knows. She thinks of these books as her own kind of private love songs to the place she calls home.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I AM A FOSSIL HUNTER - AND SO CAN YOU!*

…because anyone can be a hunter of fossils, because they're everywhere!

And okay, maybe not EVERYWHERE - but certainly not just restricted to China or Montana or wherever you usually think of. I found this brachiopod cluster just a short walk from my apartment in boring old Binghamton, NY, back in the mid-'70s…



…and we used to find whole beds of horn coral like the below while snorkeling in the Finger Lakes.


(Difference is one on left was fossilized and remained in water, while the other was exposed on land)

So yeah - this stuff is out there; you just have to look for it!

Baylor's book is a brief but beautiful ode to the dinosaur lover in all of us, (even though only a small portion of fossils are in fact from dinosaurs; the vast majority are shells, corals, or other sealife, for obvious reasons). And Parnall's subtle yet exquisite line/wash drawings are minor masterpieces. Although their other collaborations (including The Desert Is Theirs and The Way to Start a Day) are of less innate interest to me, I will definitely get them from the library just to see what else this talented team has come up with.
______________________________

* Tip of the hat to Stephen Colbert and his classics I Am America (And So Can You!), and I Am a Pole (And So Can You!)

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite by this team, but of course still wonderful. The verse isn't quite as poetic, the appeal is stronger for hunters of fossils & less universal, and some of the pictures seem a little, I dunno, inside-out or something. However, perfect for many curricular applications, and a must read for fans of Baylor & Parnall.

The reminders of certains truths, for example that deep time is more 'real' than the blue pickup truck, is necessary to young readers. I hope young dinosaur fans are still exposed to, and inspired by, this classic.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zowie. I've had this book in my tote bag for no fewer than three months, and I'd never opened it because I thought it would be a boring, outdated, limited-color look at fossil hunting. (And I'm a dinosaur-lover, so you'd think I'd be particularly kind towards a book like this.) Nope. So wrong. Still timely, still lovely. I absolutely plan to use this book during my rocks and minerals unit, and I might even plan a National Board lesson around it.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the chain of life over millions of years through fossils, talking about different regions of the US and the creatures that would have inhabited those regions, leaving their fossils behind as the world slowly changed from one being covered by water to large masses of dry land.

I love the way this book reads aloud, an eloquent prose-poem that flows well. The illustrations are somewhat abstract and hint at the creatures mentioned on the page, sometimes requiring your imagination to complete the picture. Main colors are washes of blues and greens to evoke the sea that covered the earth with some golds and browns as the land starts to emerge. Text on one page of every two page spread with illustration on both pages.

Overall a very enjoyable read.

Appears to be out of print.

[Maggie Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book because the images have hidden figures of the dinosaur that shows the fossil. This book can be very interactive for young readers because it allows them to practice reading and seeing the clues to find the dinosaurs in the pages of the books. The images within the pages are very confusing but I truly think this would be an excellent read allowed for students because we can read this book when we focus on fossils and prehistoric times. The one thing that may be confusing is the students might have trouble as super young readers, so I may use this in a 2nd grade classroom. As an activity, we can look at fossils from a museum and explore more about dinosaurs and what the environment looked like during those times.

[Katie Little]

This is a great, informal book.

[Melanie Gaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this a lot more than I expected I would.

[Danielle Woolard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a bit obscure honestly. But the artwork is kind of incredible, if a little creepy.

[Jayetta Carter-mcfarlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This picture book is written in poetry format, describing the adventures of a hunter of fossils. Information about fossls, such as trilobites that lives five hundred years agao, dinosaur tracts, and seed ferns are explored. Manyk places are named, such as the rhioceros bone found in the hills of Nebraska, or the sponges in the rocks of an Iowa farm. I would use this book to blend a literacy and science lesson in grades 3 - 5. The science content will lead to a lesson to meet GPS standards S3E1 and S4L2.

[Alexis Levine · Rating 4 out of 5]

If You Are a Hunter of Fossils is a book about environments a fossil hunter person would go to in search of fossils and what are characteristics of different fossils. THis book is written like a poem and could be used for literacy or science for those reasons for children in grades 2nd-5th when discussing fossils and classification.

[Jazelle Washington · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book mentions places a hunter of fossils would go to look for fossils, and how some of the fossils would loook. For example, a trilobite would be a fossil that's five hundred millions years old.

[Debra]

K - 5

Fossils and Human Connection with Nature

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Reading Rainbow book)