Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker
My rating: 4/5 cats
bones bones bones bones
bones are awesome. and this is a great book for kids who are budding forensic anthropologists. you know you are out there—KIDS, STOP WANTING TO BE ASTRONAUTS— ASTRONAUTS DON’T EVEN EXIST
but this book shows all manner of cool stuff—how people were buried, what they were wearing, what they were buried with, what happens to bones over time. it is fascinating that so much of people’s lives can be reconstructed just based on their bones: who smoked a pipe, who was what race/gender/religion/socioeconomic class, who had rickets, even the identities of the bodies lying in unmarked graves—HOW COOL IS THAT??
we love bone detectives! they solve the mysteries of “where is this one’s head?” and “why was this one just hucked down this crawlspace with this broken crockery??” and “what did this one look like with its skin on??
if my textbooks had been this fun in jr. high and high school, i would be way smarter. but i’m not. but at least my bones are still inside my skin—suck on that, jamestown bitches!!!
what kid isn’t fascinated by skellingtons?? this book treats them like clues, not corpses, and shows how respectful the scientists are as they exhume and examine the bodies. i can only hope that someday i get all dug up by scientists who will piece together my life and will maybe accidentally make it more exciting than it actually was and they will tell young wide-eyed kids i was clearly a racecar president gymnast with big boobs.
science!!
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