Customer Reviews

Evolution Revolution

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Civilizations have long pondered our very existence, have had theories and an assortment of "creation stories" to explain where we came from, and have often wondered how we began and evolved into what we are today. Aborigines, Greeks, Hindus, Pacific islanders, Native Americans and Christian peoples all had their tales and myths to pass along to the next generation. The debate of "you're wrong and I'm right" will continue for as long as we are on this Earth. Charles Darwin and his Theory of Natural Selection and the resulting publication of the Origin of Species blew many previous theories out of the water.

In this magnificent book you'll have the opportunity to explore "evolutionary science" in a way you've quite not experienced before. This book is so vibrant you won't quite know where to begin. Each page is a mishmash of factual material presented in many different ways. You can read it partly as a graphic novel and wend your way through short paragraphs of information. There are even several small experiments or projects you can do, including one where you can actually extract and take a look at your own DNA. Did you know that "if all the froglets survived, the world would be knee-deep in frogs withing 10 years?"

This is an utterly amazing book that will, on many levels, entrance the reader. The pages are so busy and visually exciting it is difficult to know where to begin on each one. There is everything a student would ever want to know about evolutionary science in this book. There are photographs, illustrations, a time line, maps, a glossary and an index. Even the most reluctant reader will be willing to spend hours poring over this material. Did you know that Alfred Russel Wallace, a young man Darwin corresponded with, came to the same conclusion concerning natural selection? If not, you may be in for a few surprises in this book!

As a free-thinking mom, I was thrilled to find this book for my young sons (first & third grade). It is a fantastic journey through time and thought. The colorful images kept them pouring over the pages and the reading was fairly easy for my third grader. The book reads well straight through, but is also sorted into small sections for quick reads.

I only wish books like this had been available to me when I was a child.

The best children's book I've come across on this subject (though Evolution by Daniel Loxton is well done too, Mammals That Morph looks promising, and there may be others I've missed...but this is just superb!)

-The topics are well organized. The information is thorough and abundant.

-It's very visually appealing.

The lay out and graphics both draw you in, separate the words into digestible chunks, and assist in comprehension. The colors and pictures are irresistible. Your kid can flip through and "snack" on tidbits of information, or you can read straight through, creating a comprehensive picture. The book contains the best visual time-line I've seen for the progression of life as we understand it, starting at 4,000 million years ago, working up to the Cambrian explosion of life, then taking you through the periods, Cambrian to present. I love that it included a picture of how the continents were arranged next to six of the periods, with explanations of how this affected life. This is just one example of many topics summarized and illustrated in top-notch manner.

-There are a few very interesting activities suggested throughout the book, including a simple way to extract and take a look at your own DNA

The book is organized into 4 sections:

1) The search for ANSWERS

(contains a time-line of thought and debate from creation stories, through Linnaeus, Buffon's Laws of Nature, Lamarck, Diluvialism, Cuvier & Extinction, and Charles Lyell, up to Darwin)

2) DARWIN and his theory

(covers the history surrounding the development of his theory, as well as explanations of the theory itself)

3) All in the GENES

(from Mendel and the "pea plant puzzle", to explanation of genes, chromosomes & DNA, the way traits are passed on, mutations, genetic drift, speciation, environmental factors and switching genes "on" or "off," biodiversity, genetic engineering, "playing God" ethics debates, cloning, and tinkering with recreating extinct animals)

4) EVOLUTION in action

(wonderful time line of life on earth, "missing links", "Islands apart," convergent evolution, embryo development, vestigial structures, examples/diagrams of evolution in several animals, "from ape to human," "human behavior", "surviving sickness", and "still evolving")

You will not only find the above topics masterfully done, but all sorts of delightful surprises are packed into this book! I will be hunting down his other books with anticipation.

BTW, both my Kindergartener and 3rd grader are enthralled with this book, but an older kid or adult can just as easily enjoy and learn from it (I did!)

This book, like many DK books, has a dense amount of information, but broken up into helpful images, captions, and pop-out text boxes. A young child could learn a good deal from the graphics and captions alone, and an older child (or adult!) could learn from the more in-depth facts on each page. It makes brief mention of several creation myths without sounding biased, and past that focuses solely on science.

It has got amazing information that I have not found that were put together in another book.