Laura in the Youth Services Department at Thomas Ford Memorial Library grew up in Maryland. When I mentioned that I took a trip to St. Mary's County in Maryland to do some family history research, she suggested that I read Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker. A day or two later in the lunch room, Uma, head of the Youth Services Department, saw that I was reading a Sally M. Walker book. She said that Walker is a well-known author of nonfiction for youth and that our library usually buys her books. A lot of hands touched the book before it landed in my hands, for which I am grateful.
Reading Written in Bone is much like watching an episode of Nova on our local PBS station. Walker shows in pictures and explains through text the work and findings of forensic archaeologists uncovering burial sites in two of our country's original English colonies. Her reporting is on the spot down in the dirt. You can almost feel the Chesapeake heat and humidity as the archaeologists brush the soil from the bones of individuals who died in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Better yet, you get to witness how they examine evidence to learn how the early settlers lived and died.
Looking at our library's catalog of books, I see that Walker has written books at various grade levels. I am attracted to two titles similar to Written Bone. Frozen Secrets recounts Antarctic exploration, and Secrets of a Civil War Submarine uncovers another a bit of American history. I am glad to be a big kid set loose in the children's book collection.
Walker, Sally M. Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland. Carolrhoda Books, 2009. 144p. ISBN 9780822571353.