Dragon in the Rocks

Ted McGee is an associate professor of English at St. Jerome’s
College, University of Waterloo.

Dragon in the Rocks is about Mary Anning, the 12-year-old who, in 1792,
recovered the remains of a huge ichthyosaur from the cliffs near Lyme
Regis in England. The story is one of remarkable determination on
Mary’s part, particularly after the death of her father, who loved
collecting fossils and taught his daughter “how to chip the rock-hard
clay with a chisel and split it with a special little hammer.”
(Indeed, the story provides a powerful example of the formative
influence a father might have on a child.) Mary’s family and close
friends all support her in her quest to retrieve the “dragon in the
rocks.” And she, with paleontological wisdom beyond her years,
succeeds—mapping the fossil, recovering the bones, numbering them
carefully, and re-assembling the ichthyosaur.

Mary Day’s story is substantial and complex. Her watercolor
illustrations, beautifully integrated with the text, individuate
characters while creating vivid impressions of bygone days. They also
reinforce the story’s heartening depiction of people by making them
centres of color, brightness, and energy in the midst of the grey rocks
of the Dorset coast or the muted interiors of homes in 19th-century
England.

Rarely does one find a picture book that is hard to put down, but
Dragon in the Rocks is just such a book. Highly recommended.