Customer Reviews

Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas

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Everything in this picture book is wonderful: the illustrations, the tone of the text, the amount of biographical and scientific information. This will serve as a fabulous introduction to Mendel's innovative scientific work on genetics for a 5th or 6th grader's science curriculum, or for just general family's enjoyment!

How does genetics work? Gregor Mendle was fascinated by passed-along traits all his life, and overcame poverty to found the science of genetics. He lived the life of a friar and put together an experiment involving growing multiple generations of peas. Kids in grades 3-4 will delight in a true biography that reads with the excitement of fiction.

In this book, Bardoe develops a creative text that re-tells the story of the life of the great Gregor Mendel and his seminal studies on pea plants that led to the development of modern genetics understanding. The book contains beautiful illustrations by Jos. A. Smith that complement and expand upon the text. When I read this book for the first time, I was so excited, I purchased it immediately. I am a high school biology teacher and I could easily see how valuable this text would be for teaching about Mendel in my unit on genetics. For the past several years, I have read this text aloud to my high school (10th grade) students in both my honors biology course as well as my general biology course. My students appreciate learning more about Gregor Mendel; more than they get from the text book coverage of the topic. I especially enjoy the description of Mendel's early life and how he basically worked his way out of poverty through his schooling and later association with the Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno.

I really like the way that Bardoe speaks in language that is not condescending or patronizing. Actually, many of my biology students ask me upon completion of reading whether this book really is a "child's book?" The writing includes direct quotes from Mendel and detailed description of his experimental method with the pea plants. I love using this book so much in my biology classes and I hope that Bardoe will consider writing similar texts about some of the other great historic scientists like Charles Darwin or Linnaeus or maybe even a contemporary like Jane Goodall. I am sure whatever and however Bardoe writes, it will be fantastic and very useful for teachers like me who love to read aloud in the science classroom!

This is a great basic book to explain genetics and Mendel's life. Super diagrams. Great for early science reports...

Written at an easy to read elementary level, this book presents the monumental scientific discoveries of Gregor Mendel in an accurate narrative that can be enjoyed and understood by children. We need more books like this to inspire the next generation of scientists to make the world a better place.

I found this book to be well-written and informative, and the information and story are well presented: it's interesting to the reader to follow Mendel's thinking. The illustrations are likewise wonderful.

Brilliant book promoting a sense of scientific inquiry from Mendel's own senses of curiosity that helped discover how we get our recessive and dominant traits - via genes.

The illustrations are brilliant and the text very mature aimed at the confident reader, or as a read from an adult. In the healthiest way possible I think it will test a child's attention span as well as a lot of the concepts will "probably" be new, well they will be new to the average child.

Brilliant book - eat your peas!

Both the illustrations and the text paint a clear but optimistic picture of the life of Gregor Mendel, the pioneer of genetic research. We learn that Mendel was always interested not only in how things grew the way they did but also general math and science. Most adults, I believe, hear the word "friar" and assume he was a religious office holder who fell into science. Through this biography, we learn that he was a scientist who fell into a religious career as a way of financing his scientific studies.

The descriptions of his initial experiments and the results were clear and easy to understand. My 6 year old sons, while a little on the young side for this book, were curious about the illustrations of the peas. My husband and I found it fascinating.

Recommended for ages 7 and up as a primer for learning about both scientific history and genetics.

Excellent introduction to the Father of Genetics. The well-crafted text, which includes a few direct quotes from Mendel, is accented by watercolor illustrations. The perseverance and meticulous work of Mendel demands our admiration. A perfect book for grades 2-5 or 6.