
Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution Steve Jenkins Houghton Mifflin 2002
I always love Steve Jenkins’ work. It is always
interesting, engaging, and the art is invariably striking. Jenkins is a master
of paper collage (both cut and torn) illustrations.
This book features a great introduction to the topic that is extremely
friendly to younger students. It starts at the basic level of distinguishing
between living and non-living things, and then it builds up to a greater
complexity.
There is a brief history of life on earth from single celled
organisms to small invertebrates, and then to
fish with backbones. Then the story progresses from the colonization of land by
plants and animals to the appearance of Homo Sapiens.
From there, the author introduces some of the ideas,
concepts, and questions that began to cast doubt on the idea that life forms are
static. Then he explores some of the factors of Darwin’s
Galapagos experience that lead him to his theory.
Jenkins’ art is put to superb use in his
explanation of natural selection at work. The images make the concept easy to
understand while simultaneously providing lots of detail – all in a concise and
visually arresting way that takes up only two pages.
An illustration of a frog lays 3000 eggs. Only 200 of these
are not eaten by other animals. Of these 200 that hatch, only 10 make it past
the tadpole stage to become frogs.
Once these fortunate 10 frogs have traversed to Jenkins’
second page panel, they must then
negotiate a gauntlet of fish, fate, birds, snakes, and a fox (all lovingly
illustrated by Jenkins) to survive. By the time the frogs get to the other side
of the page, there are only two left, and in making the journey across the
artwork, the distinctive adaptations that allowed them to survive are
highlighted.
This book also excels in its presentation of the role of
variation and mutation in evolution. Once again, the information is enhanced by
the fact the artist has a talent for using his artistic skill to present
complexity in an easy to understand manner.
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