The fascinating and completely engrossing story of a largely self-taught scholar's irrepressible quest to discover the scientific basis of a mythological creature. This is the sort of book that will spark the imagination of readers and inspire them to seek their own answers to questions through research, observation, and investigation. ( )

I've read several "the glory of research" books and was left completely uninterested. This, however, was different.

The book starts with a brief chapter introducing Adrienne Mayor. She was not traditionally educated, with degrees, but she was curious and observed the world around her, had access to libraries and travel, and was looking for something to be her passion. Then she decided to research mythological creatures, specifically the griffin, and see if they had basis in fact. This book takes us through her research, finally relating the myth of the griffin to ancient people's observation of fossilized dinosaur bones. Along the way she suffered many setbacks but also received help from sympathetic professors and in the end not only proved her theory but showed that the observations of "uneducated" people could be important.

The book is in a large, picture-book format and has only 50 pages. But those pages are crammed with photographs, illustrations, maps, artifacts, and, of course, text. The text is presented in columns, which I found a little off-putting. Back matter includes further reading, resources, glossary, index, and a note from Marc Aronson on his involvement in the book.

While this isn't the typical nonfiction book I'd purchase for my library, several things set this apart. The lively writing draws the reader in through a high-interest topic - mythological creatures and dinosaurs - and keeps their interest by following the twists and turns of the plot. It's presented as an adventure with a mystery and kids will definitely stay with this one to find out the solution to all the clues.

Verdict: The layout is not quite what I would like - anything that looks like a picture book is a hard sell for my older readers (and their parents). However, the book itself rises above that and will definitely grab kids' attention. Recommended.

ISBN: 9781426311086; Published 2014 by National Geographic; Borrowed from another library in my consortium

An enticing story for young and old, a detective story of ancient times
An exciting adventure in a way, this story begins with Adrienne Mayor born in 1946, as a young schoolgirl who is fascinated by mythology and in particular with the story of the Griffin. How does a shy, quiet kid from Souix Falls, South Dakota, come to develop a new field of research - geomythology? This book by Marc Aronson follows her path as student from country to country as she searches through ancient texts about mythical creatures. This is no easy task as she learns ancient languages in order to read these texts.

How Adrienne is able to discover what others miss is the way she thinks. She is sure that these ancient people had to have seen something real, even if only bones. She knows she is onto something meaningful and very early in history. At first she knows very little about these early dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, but she is determined and learns. Her goal is set on the Griffin. There must have been bones of a real animal to influence the people of the time. Therefore, she must go back through the pages of time to find one thing. Where did the first story come from, and why? The Griffin was said to protect gold. Where was gold found along with prehistoric bones? This is how she progressed until finally finding the link from paleontology to her "Griffin."

An enticing story for young and old, a detective story of how to seek and find from the most ancient of times. The fascination of paleontology captures our imagination already, and here the vision of what can be discovered turns to mythology. How exciting is that? ( )