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WHEN THE EARTH WAS GREEN: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance
by Riley Black

WHEN THE EARTH WAS GREEN: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance by Riley Black

A gorgeously composed narrative nonfiction book about the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth

Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root show us that dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and even humans would not exist without the evolutionary efforts of their leafy counterparts. It has been the constant growth of plants that have allowed so many of our favorite, fascinating prehistoric creatures to evolve, oxygenating the atmosphere, coaxing animals onto land, and forming the forests that shaped our ancestors’ anatomy. It is impossible to understand our history without them. Or, our future.

Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.

RILEY BLACK (she/they) has been heralded as “one of our premier gifted young science writers” and is the award-winning author of Skeleton Keys, My Beloved Brontosaurus, Written in Stone, When Dinosaurs Ruled, and The Last Days of the Dinosaurs. A science correspondent for Smithsonian and regular contributor to publications like National Geographic and Slate, Riley is a widely-recognized expert on paleontology. She won the 2024 Friend of Darwin Award from the National Center for Science Education. http://rileyblack.net/

Foreign sales for The Last Days of the Dinosaurs:

China/Changjiang Literature, France/Leduc, Germany/Goldmann, Italy/Il Saggiatore, Japan/Kagaku-Dojin Publishing, Korea/Wisdomhouse Publishing, Romania/Humanitas, Russia/Alpina, Turkey/Nova Kitap, UK/History Press, Ukraine/Bearded Tamarin, Vietnam/AZ Culture

Early praise for When the Earth Was Green:

“Black is a poet of prehistory, narrating the final moments of a gooey mosquito or the accidental, tree-bound voyage of a monkey with the detail of someone who was there and saw it all, millions of years ago.... This is a book steeped with vegetal beauty, one that unfurls like a flower, blooming.” —Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches and staff writer at Defector

“Brilliant, brimming with insight, and boundlessly entertaining. Black launches a grand tour of deep time, surveying the influence of plant life on animal evolution (and vice versa). It’s a 1.2 billion-year fandango, masterfully chronicled.” —Jason Roberts, author of Every Living Thing and A Sense of the World

“An essential, extraordinary story...Black shows us how the natural world has always been a splendid, entangled scrum of interactions and transactions.” —Daniel Lewis, author of Twelve Trees, Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science and Technology, Huntington Library

“What a beautiful book! I couldn’t put it down. Black has crafted a prose so vivid and precise that it feels more like watching a film. Through Black’s ‘vignettes,’ the reader is taken on a breathtaking exploration of life’s interconnectedness.” —Paco Calvo, author of Planta Sapiens

Praise for Riley Black:

“Black blends the intricacies of science with masterful storytelling for a cracking, enchanting read.”—Newsweek

“This is top-drawer science writing.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Exquisitely written.”—Booklist

“A real-life, natural history page-turning drama that is necessary reading for almost anyone interested in the history of life.”—Library Journal, starred review

We have the 3rd pass .pdf to share now, which includes 30 black and white illustrations throughout the text. Those are cleared for World use, and the file fee for the illustrations is $200.

I've also attached a letter from the author to booksellers.

We hope the many publishers of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs will be excited to continue with this author, and we're happy to share that we have signed up a third book from Riley Black! That is tentatively titled Tyrant Lizard Queen and will be a fresh look at the life cycle of Tyrannosaurus Rex. We hope to publish in Spring or Summer 2026.