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).
Peter Dickinson is one of the great underrated novelists. I don't love this one as much as some of his others, but it's another surprisingly insightful story about family, responsibility, and relationships with the past. Two interweaving plotlines, one about a neanderthal girl with special powers who leads her people, semi-aquatic, fish-hunting people, into a new life inland, and one about a modern-day girl whose father is an archaeologist, who joins him on a dig in central Africa where she becomes obsessed with a crackpot archaeology theory about semi-aquatic neanderthals and endangers her father's career. This book was also extremely - almost uncomfortably - insightful about the political undercurrents of academia. I love the delicacy of the relationship between the father and daughter here.
What do You think about A Bone From A Dry Sea (1995)?
2004- There are really two, very parallel, stories told in this book, and they are only separated by a couple of million years. In the present, a young teenager named Vinny has convinced her mother to let her spend summer vacation with her father in Africa. Her father, Sam, is working in an archaeological site in Africa without much success. Vinny turns out to be his good luck charm. Flip back to the past and we see a teenager called Li that is half-ape, half-human that thinks way beyond her time. Each chapter goes back and forth between past and present. A couple of times I was lost in the paleontology talk and the present storyline was a bit boring, but I liked the author's way of describing the past storyline.
—Tori
Peter Dickinson is one of my favorite writers. I never know where we're going until I start reading. No two books are alike. That is very appealing in an era of serials. This is a children's book but that never puts me off. Once again he writes from a two-narrative perspective. One story is set in the present and tells of Vinny visiting her father who is working at a hominid fossil site in Africa. The other takes place millions of years ago and is about Li a young female just beginning to transition to human awareness. Both stories are compelling, perhaps Li's all the more so because there is no dialogue. Dickinson has set the story in a time before humans and before human language. I liked the way he interwove the settings and contrasted the characters. It's a splendid look into a possible past.
—Elizabeth Boatman
