people biographies · Ages 6-8

Mary Anning Dug Up a Monster Before Breakfast

Mary Anning found strange fossils along sea cliffs and helped scientists learn that Earth had once held animals no one had seen alive.

The whole story

1. Before breakfast, Mary Anning knelt on the beach. Her little hammer tapped the rocks beneath the tall cliffs.

2. A hard white point peeked from the stone. Mary brushed away sand and found a whole row of teeth.

3. The teeth were too large for any fish Mary knew. They made her breakfast seem very small.

4. Mary chipped gently around the stone. More bones appeared, curved and pale, like the pieces of a giant puzzle.

5. She laid the pieces together on a flat rock. The puzzle had a long spine, many ribs, and a head unlike any living creature.

6. A visitor came to study the bones. Mary showed him every piece and explained where each one had rested.

7. The visitor drew the skull, but his pencil kept stopping. No one had seen an animal like this alive.

8. Mary kept searching. She found strange fossils in the cliffs, recorded their shapes, and sent them to people who could study them.

9. Each fossil was a clue from a world buried long ago. Mary helped scientists read the clues.

10. Before breakfast, Mary had dug up a monster. Her fossils helped scientists learn that Earth had once held animals no one had seen alive.

Make a story like this →