Siberia is lit­tered with mam­moth tusks and new ones are revealed with each spring’s frost. But in 2007, Yuri Khudi dis­cov­ered some­thing extra­or­di­nary. 42,000 year-old Lyuba, a baby mam­moth, was found intact (minus toe­nails and most hair)! The sci­en­tific analy­sis from her intact remains has pro­vided a wealth of infor­ma­tion regard­ing mam­moths. In Baby Mam­moth Mummy Frozen in Time! Christo­pher Sloan with Bernard Buigues detail her dis­cov­ery and the research in a way that teaches a great deal about the work sci­en­tists do as well as spec­u­la­tion about the pos­si­bil­i­ties of mam­moth cloning.

Baby Mam­moth Mummy informs read­ers about the global sci­ence com­mu­nity in a way I can’t remem­ber from another children’s book.  Sci­en­tists in the Nether­lands dis­cov­ered when she lived using radio­car­bon dat­ing, in Tokyo they exam­ined her insides, she was autop­sied in Rus­sia and her age at death deter­mined in the United States. This coop­er­a­tive quest for knowl­edge is exciting. The cul­ture of the Nenets and the geog­ra­phy of the Yamal Penin­sula in Siberia are also high­lighted. The nar­ra­tive is punc­tu­ated with side­bars and spreads clearly illus­trat­ing help­ful addi­tional infor­ma­tion such as mam­moth rel­a­tives, a Nenets myth and car­bon dating.

Good as this book is, you may be able to not just read about Lyuba, but also see her! She is on tour in the United States through 2014 as part of the Mam­moths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age exhibit.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion about mam­moths, check out The Pale­on­tol­ogy Por­tal.

Some other books about mam­moths and their era:

Ice Age Tracker’s Guide by Adrian Lis­ter & Mar­tin Ursell

Out­side and Inside Woolly Mam­moths by San­dra Markle (pub­lished just before dis­cov­ery of Lyuba)

Mam­moths on the Move by Lisa Wheeler, illus­trated by Kurt Cyrus. This one’s a fun rhyming pic­ture book with irrestible refrain: “Mas­sive, hairy, leg­endary, won­der­ful woolly mammoths!”

This week’s Non­fic­tion Mon­day is hosted by Wrapped in Foil. Hop on over to check out other inter­est­ing nonfiction.