The bone wars The true story of an epic battle to find dinosaur fossils

O. C. Marsh, a proud Princeton graduate, and Edward Cope, a high-school dropout with an active mind and a lively writing style, first met in 1863. Learning that they shared a common interest in science and, particularly, in discovering and studying dinosaur fossils, they became good friends. But as each man raced to be the first to find, research, and name newly uncovered fossils, their once-friendly relationship turned into a bitter personal rivalry that tarnished each man's reputation and legacy. Today their competition is called "the Bone Wars." The only winners were the visitors who flocked to America's natural history museums to see dinosaur fossils first identified and named by Cope and Marsh. Kurtz contributes a narrative that shows how the men's underhanded actions ruined them while pointing out their contributions to scientific knowledge. Vidal's digital illustrations capture the nineteenth-century settings as well as the fascination with dinosaurs experienced by museum visitors past and present. The back matter features notes from both the writer and the illustrator. An engaging picture book related to dinosaur discoveries.

Gr 3--6--Kurtz details the bitter rivalry that developed between two 19th-century scientists and fossil hunters. O.C. Marsh and Edward Cope were originally colleagues and friends, but when Marsh caught a mistake made by Cope, the two engaged in a furious competition to find fossils and promote their latest discoveries. They hired teams of workers who were sent west to explore newly discovered fossil beds. They paid their workers to spy on each other's camps and even encouraged them to fill in dig sites and mix findings to throw off their rivals. This carefully neutral account reads like a fable as the two engage in ultimately self-destructive highjinks. Both died alone. Marsh's students referred to him as the "great dismal swamp" behind his back. Cope's wife reportedly left him after finding one too many snakes among her shoes. Kurtz notes that their efforts added to the scientific record, though it also took years to correct mistakes made in haste. Other scientists built upon their findings to make more accurate discoveries. Vidal's cartoony digital illustrations add action and humor, along with factual details. Appendices include a list of sources and suggestions for further reading. VERDICT This lively, well-crafted book will delight dinosaur lovers. Educators will also appreciate its insight on the eventful early days of fossil hunting.--Marilyn Taniguchi

Approximately one hundred fifty years ago, and sixty-five million years after the dinosaurs' extinction, scientists discovered fossil treasure troves of bone beds in the western United States. Rather than combine their knowledge and discoveries, two well-known paleontologists, O. C. Marsh and Edward Cope, once friendly colleagues, vied for top billing in the scientific community. They infiltrated, sabotaged, and even destroyed one another's dig sites. They furiously collected bones, identified new species, and published papers. And they both died lonely old men. Vidal's earth-tone palette visually sets the scene for the numerous digs, while a gloomy gray dominates his compositions of the scientists away from these sites, where their distaste for each other plays out in public. He renders his digital dinosaurs and other creatures to reflect what nineteenth-century scientists knew about them, underscoring details from the text. Kurtz effectively creates the escalating tension between Marsh and Cope as she alternates each scientist's action with the other's reaction. In conclusion, she points out that the public was the true winner of this "war," which produced new discoveries and museum exhibits of the hundred and thirty species the two collectively identified. Rounding out this clear and intriguing account are author and illustrator notes, a bibliography, and suggestions for further reading. Betty CarterNovember/December 2023 p.100 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A 19th-century scientific feud fueled our modern mania for dinosaurs. Sharing a fascination with fossilized bones and eager to find new dinosaur species, O.C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope started out as close collaborators--"friends forever," as Kurtz puts it. But they had a massive falling out ("Hoo boy!") over which end of a long-necked Elasmosaurus skeleton the head should be attached to. For the rest of their careers, they engaged in an "all-out competition" for new discoveries. Things turned so "mean and messy" as they spied on one another and sabotaged or seeded sites with fakes that both ended up "disgraced and broke." But in the process they filled American museums with dino specimens and sparked a public interest in them that has yet to wane. Along with scenes of racially diverse groups of marveling modern museumgoers, Vidal mixes views of rough-hewn crews digging up bones and trying to figure out how they go together (or donning a false beard and other disguises to sneak into each other's camps) with antique fleshed-out examples of early discoveries based on now-outmoded guesses about how they might have looked. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A wry case study in how bad behavior can advance scientific knowledge. (author's and illustrator's notes, selected sources, suggested reading) (Informational picture book. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.