Reviews for A Bone from a Dry Sea

The average rating for A Bone from a Dry Sea based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-07-07 00:00:00 David Fechheimer The book that made me want to be an archaeologist. Also which prompted the reading of Elaine Morgan's books later on. I still remember a surprising number of details and facts from it, given that I read it when I was young. Also I think I must have liked the idea of the dad wanting his daughter to come join him, since my own father apparently had no such wishes.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-07-02 00:00:00 Chris Cozens I immediately thought about this book when I started reading Sapiens, about the history of our species. It's an odd little novel that imagines our distant ancestors as sea apes. Half of the book follows Vinny, the daugher of a modern-day paleontologist (well, taphonomist) who visits the dig site that he's working on in Africa. The other half follows Li, an ancient hominid who begins to expand the boundaries of her tribe's knowledge. I love both stories: the Li narrative is imaginative and strange, and the Vinny narrative paints an interesting picture of paleontological life. And, of course, the narratives end up colliding with the discovery of a bone from a dry sea. On this read of the book I was much more interested in how old Vinny is supposed to be, which is the sign of a well-written YA novel. When I was reading this at 10 or 11 or 12, I never wondered about Vinny's age--the things that she did that were extremely adult, like breaking down her feelings about her divorced parents so matter-of-factly, or standing up to Joe Hamiska, felt natural. She's almost ageless in her maturity--you just know that she's younger than the others, but sometimes sees things more clearly than they do (which is why she's a good foil for Li).