Friday, August 2, 2013

Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution





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 Darwins 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.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.