Kurtz, Jane. The Bone Wars: The True Story of an Epic Battle to Find Dinosaur Fossils. Illustrated by Alexander Vidal. Beach Lane, 2023. 978-1-534-49364-3. Unpaged. $18.99. Grades PreK-3.

The Bone Wars chronicles the saga of paleontological competition between O.C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope in the days of the Bone Wars. Initially friends, the two became fierce rivals after Marsh pointed out to Cope that he had assembled Elasmosaurus with the head on its tail in a recently published scientific paper. The two began competing for discoveries from that moment forward, even resorting to deception and spying to beat the other team. Jane Kurtz acknowledges in her writing that the race to make the next discovery also resulted in many mistakes, broken relationships with friends and other scientists, and ultimately financial stress. Back matter includes notes from both the author and illustrator, as well as a select bibliography and suggested reading list.  

THOUGHTS: The story of the competition between O.C. Marsh and Edward Cope is one that young dinosaur fans are sure to enjoy, not only because of all the discoveries the scientists made, but also because of the tale of a friendship gone awry.  The illustrations, created by Alexander Vidal, are inspired by paleontologic artwork created in the 1800s.  They work with the text to give the reader a sense of the book’s time period and knowledge at the time.  Recommended for libraries seeking to draw dinosaur fans into biographies or to add variety to their dinosaur collection.  

560.92 Paleontology
Biography