Day of the Mastodon

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Seventy-nine thousand years ago, a huge elephantine creature strolled
through a swamp in what is now Nova Scotia. Suddenly, the ground beneath
the massive beast gave way, causing the animal to fall heavily and
fatally injure itself on a shelf of jagged rocks. In 1993, a backhoe
operator working in a gypsum quarry discovered a set of well-preserved
bones buried in the ground. Those old bones, which belonged to a
long-extinct prehistoric mastodon, became the inspiration for this book
by paleontologist F.C. Thomas. By combining painstaking scientific
research with poetic licence, Thomas re-creates the life and world of
this fascinating animal.

The mastodon lived in an ecosystem very much like our own. Throughout
the book, Thomas mentions familiar species of plants and trees and uses
secondary characters like ravens, wolves, beavers, and sparrows to
immediately place the reader on the scene. The competently written story
moves well, although occasionally the simmering paleontologist in Thomas
erupts in a sudden geyser of scientific detail. Any young reader
interested in learning more about this North American mammal, complete
with pachyderm humor, will certainly enjoy this book. Recommended.