Living Books on Geology

My senior chose geology for her science this year. She had a pretty busy year and she is aiming for an art school so I didn’t feel the need to make her science too tough. You might want to add additional books or some labs or other activities if you are looking for a more robust curriculum. You can find a list of geology books we used at younger ages here.

Living Books on Geology

Secrets from the Rocks by Albert Marrin — Marrin is a favorite author of mine. He writes more often on history but has a few books, like this one, on science. This is a fairly simple book, ceratinly not high school level. It tells the story of one particular man in search of dinosaur bones.

Annals of the Former World by John McPhee — This is a thick volume intended for adults and combines a number of works which the author published separately originally (I believe). McPhee is a well-known writer who has written for The New Yorker and other publications.

A Grain of Sand by Gary Greenberg — The story of sand and what we can know from different kinds of sand.

The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester — The story of how one man noticed and deciphered layers in the earth and made a map to depict them.

Beneath Our Feet by Ron Vernon — An introduction to some of the basics of geology including basic forces and types of rocks. Includes lovely microscopic photos of rocks. 

The Rock Book by Carol Lane Fenton and Mildred Adams Fenton — A fairly detailed catalog of different kidns of rocks and minerals.

Books about Fossils

We have been studying geology in our homeschool this year. I had posted previously about many of the books we have used. Up until this time it was mostly rocks, plate tectonics, etc. But lately we have been reading about fossils and dinosaurs so I thought I would share with you the books we have been using on those topics. As a warning, I am not a young earth creationist (see this post, among many others). Some of these books might still be acceptable if you are, but most would not.

The first few books we read were about people who hunted fossils:

Rare Treasure by Don Brown — a picture book about Mary Anning

Barnum’s Bones by Tracey Fern — another picture book about a guy named Barnum Brown

Dinosaur Hunter by Elaine Marie Aplhin — an easy reader type chapter book about some boys who discover some bones. My 8-year-old enjoyed it.

The Hunt for the Mastodon by Georgianne Ensign is also about boys discovering bones (mastodon, not dinosaur, obviously). It is  a longer book (my 10-year-old read it) and gives more info along the way about the animals.

Some other shorter books that my two younger kids also read:

A Woolly Mammoth Journey by Debbie S. Miller — a picture book that tells of a mammoth family and how they lived. It’s fairly simple but I think my 8yo liked it.

The Crocodiles Still Wait by Carol Carick — another shorter, simpler picture book but my 10yo appreciated the battles between an ancient crocodile and some dinosaurs.

Saber-Toothed Tiger by Joanna Cole — we are actually doing this one next week. It is another picture book about prehistoric mammals. It looks good.

Some books we read together:

Tiniest Giants by Lowell Dingus and Luis Chiappe — this is the story of an excavation in Argentina in which they found a large cache of dino eggs and the first fossilized embryonic dinosaur skin. It is written by a couple of the people on the expedition. It is  a bit dry in parts but does a good job of showing the process they go through. It definitely takes 4-5 sittings to get through.

Dinosaur Ghosts by J. Lynett Gillette — I am not sure this is the best written book but for some reason it took hold around here. It is a longish picture book type. It tells about a cache of dino fossils found in the American west (can’t remember which state; Arizona?) and theorizes about how they all came to be there at once and how they died. It is presented as a puzzle which I suppose is why my kids got into it. After the first days reading, I asked the kids how they thought the dinos had died. The littler two were very excited about the idea that there might have been a giant battle. But for some reason my 10yo son could not get over the idea that if they had all killed each other something must have happened to the last one left. He didn’t seem convinced when we suggested if there was a last one it could have just left and not been found there. Finally he decided that the last one must have died of amnesia. After laughing at him a while, we asked him if he knew what amnesia was. The most surprising thing is that he did (thank you, Dukes of Hazzard). So we pictured this last dinosaur sitting on a  pile of his friends’/foes’ bones and wondering who he is and why he is there and finally dying because he couldn’t remember to go home or eat. The real solution is  a lot less satisfying. We were able to discuss how scientists sometimes just don’t know all the answers though.

The Tales Fossils Tell by Jonathan R. Gallant — Gallant is one of those very prolific kids’ authors with books on every subject one can imagine. I was looking for  a general overview to read aloud to all my kids and this was the best I found. It is a bit dry but was bearable. I liked when they discussed the earliest ideas people had about fossils.

Finally a couple of books good for bigger kids. Both of these are real treasures:

Forgotten by Time by Robert Silverberg — This is a wonderful book if you can find it. It is all about “living fossils” which the author defines as animals or plants which bridge gaps between categories (is it a fish or a reptile?) or which have survived over long millenia with little change. It is very well written. I read the whole thing myself and am now having my two older kids read it. Not only is the subject matter intriguing, Silverberg makes a good story out of each case.

The Great Whale of Kansas by Richard W. Jennings — This is the fictional account of a boy in Kansas who discovers a fossil in his backyard. It is a compelling story. It slips in some few tidbits about the various eras and epochs, but mostly it is just fun.

Geology Books

Geology Books

Beneath Our Feet by Ron Vernon — This book covers a lot of ground (so to speak) and I used it as our spine book for much of our time on geology, reading it aloud to all the kids. The unique part of this book is that the author has taken microscope photos of many rocks and minerals and shows them through the book. There are many other, life-size photos as well so that one can see the patterns in rocks really well. The text was at times hard for my kids (ages 8-13) to follow, especially the younger ones, but I think for the most part they got the gist of things. I liked that this was not textbook-y at all. That is  hard to find in science books these days.

Be Your Own Rock and Mineral Expert by Michele Pinet and Alain Korkos — This book is more textbook-y. Well, maybe that’s not quite the right word for it but it is one of those books with lots of little boxes of disjointed text. It also contains experiments and things to do. I had my 10-year-old read this and the level was fine for him. I skipped over the practical, hands-on parts. I think it gave a nice introduction to the kinds of rocks and how they are formed, but it is not a living book.

Rocks in His Head by Carol Otis Hurst and James Stevenson — This is a picture book about a man who collected rocks. I had my 8-year-old read it. It is a nice story if you have younger kids. I am not sure she learned much about rocks from it but maybe it will inspire some kid with a love of rocks themselves.

Pebble in My Pocket: A History of Our Earth by Meredith Hooper — I also had my 8-year-old read this one. It is a little tougher. Basically, it follows the life of a pebble through time showing the changes in the earth. For her narration, I had her make a timeline of the earth as given in the book (I should confess here that I am not a young earth creationist [I did a long series on that too; you can see some of the posts here, here, and here]; if you are, this book is not for you). It was a bit of a challenge for her and she certainly could not have read this book in one sitting, but I was pleased enough with it.

How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World by Faith McNulty — This was one for my 10-year-old. As with the previous book, I had him narrate by making a chart; this one was of the layers of the earth. He did well with this and I think it was a book that was well-suited to his level (he is close to an on-level reader; if anything a little behind for his age). I don’t recall that there was anything young earth people would object too but I couldn’t say for sure since it’s been a few months now.

The Rock Book by Carol Lane Fenton and Mildred Adams Fenton — This is an older book but a living one (mostly) on rocks. I had my 11 and 13-year-old read it. I will say they didn’t seem to love it but they did  a decent job on their narrations so I think they understood it. I talks about how a kind of rocks are formed and then will have  a chapter describing all of that kind. I skipped those descriptive chapters and just stuck to the ones on how they were formed. At times it is quite detailed. I would recommend this book, though I am not sure my kids would. It is upper middle school to high school level.

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne — We did this classic as a read aloud at lunch times. It took quite a while and at times, as all Verne’s books, can drag when it gets too descriptive. I am sure there were times the kids were tuning out but by the end, I do think they cared about the characters and the ending. This seems to happen a lot with classic books which stretch their level of understanding; they don’t get everything but it is basically a good story so they end up caring. If you are looking for an accurate description of the earth’s interior though, this is not the book for you. It is quite fanciful.

Geology of the Eastern Coast by Kathleen Brown and Cynthia Light Brown — This is part of a series of books which treat different areas of the US. We are on the east coast so I chose this volume. I really liked the idea of this book, looking at the formations where we are and how they came to be. Even after I got the book and opened it and saw how textbook-y it looked (with vocab words in bold even) I still really wanted it to be a good book. I had my 8-year-old read it and it was probably too tough a choice for her. And in the end it was just too textbook-y for me. There were periodic experiments, some of which we did, and she really liked that part.

Birth of an Island  by Millicent Selsam — This one my 8-year-old liked. It is basically about how an island formed and how plants and animals came to be on it. I think it took her 2 or 3 sittings to read but it is not  a hard book. Pleasant is what I would call it.

Storybook of Earth’s Treasures  by — This was a used book store find, I can’t even find it on Amazon. It tells the story of gold, coal, oil, and iron. My 10-year-old read it easily and did well narrating it so I think it was well suited to him. If you run across it, I would recommend it.

The Story of Diamonds by Jean Milne — I used this as a read aloud, mostly because we ran out of time to do it otherwise. This is a nice book which covers a lot, how diamonds are formed, how and where they are mined, and stories of some famous diamonds. Perhaps it was the subject matter but the kids seemed genuinely interested and asked good questions.

The Story of Salt by Mark Kurlansky — I am having my 10yo read this one. He hasn’t startde it yet but it looks good to me.

Black Gold: The Story of Oil in Our LIves by Albert Marrin —  This is a find, a real treasure. It is a living book as evidenced by the fact that my two older kids narrated it very well and often seemed excited to tell me bits of it. It could also be read by older kids but my middle schoolers did well with it.

Bedrock by Lauret E. Savoy, et.al. — This is another book I was really pleased to find. It is a collection of poems, essays, and excerpts on things geological. They are arranged by topic and really do come from a wide variety of sources. They also vary in value. It takes some looking through to find the ones you will like but I really enjoyed looking through this book and ended up reading a number of the selections to my kids. There were, for instance, some very vivid descriptions of what it was like to live through an earthquake or a volcano.

And finally, my younger two kids went through a selection of shorter books on individual subjects. If your library is like ours, it has a ton of these books, of varying value. Most are not true living books but some are better than others. Here are ones my kids read:

Earthquakes by Ellen Prager — My 8yo read this and as I recall it was not too tough but was a decent enough book.

Earth Alive! by Sandra Markle — I think my 10yo read this and that it was decent. We got it from the library; we did not pay the $95+ that Amazon wants for it!

Volcanoes by David L.Harrison — Read by my 8yo. I honestly don’t remember much about it.

Cracking Up: A Story about Erosion by Jacqui Bailey — Read by my 8yo. She seemed to genuinely learn things from it and to be pleased that she did.

Avalanches by John Hamilton — My 10yo read this one. He is interested in anything dangerous, it seems.

Geysers by Roy A. Gallant — My 10yo read this and did well with it. Gallant is one of those prolific authors but based on this book, he does a decent job of making his subject interesting.

Caves and Caverns by Gail Gibbons – Another prolific kids’ author. She seems to have books on everything. They tend to be fairly simple. My 8yo read this one.

Icebergs and Glaciers by Seymour Simon — And yet another prolific one. I am not crazy about this sort of book but he seems to do a decent job. It seems like a fairly easy book though I am under the impression that some of his are a bit more difficult.

And that’s our geology list. We are going to do fossils and dinosaurs next and I have a couple of books that I am really excited about.