Through a series of visual and written cameos depicting key moments in Darwin’s life, Manning and Granström have created a picture book biography of one of the most influential figures in human history.

Starting with his childhood, through his failed studies at Edinburgh and Cambridge universities and onto, for the bulk of the book, his 5 year journey around the world on HMS Beagle, readers dip in and out of (what is presented as) Darwin’s thoughts; each double page spread features a short passage as if taken from Darwin’s personal diaries.

These “diary extracts” are supported by several boxes on each page further fleshing out the given moment in Darwin’s life. These are presented as facts about Darwin and his journey, rather than personal reflections.

Following the return of the Beagle to the UK, What Mr Darwin Saw follows Darwin’s route to publishing The Origin of Species, acknowledging the controversy it stirred up amongst the religious faithful, and also the important role played Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary naturalist who independently proposed a theory of evolution due to natural selection.

This great picture book tells a story you’re never to young to know about. On the down side I initially found this quite a difficult book to read aloud to my children. Although the book does tell a linear biography of Darwin, each double page spread stands alone and so readers have to make a lot of connections of their own when following the story from cover to cover. For example, on one page Darwin is studying in Edinburgh, whilst next he is in Cambridge and although one can infer what has taken place, it’s not immediately clear.

The decision to adopt a diary style for the main bodies of text makes the narrative immediately personal, but for adults and children very used to 21st century text, the 19th century echoes in vocabulary choices and syntax can make it a slightly stumbling read, at least the first time. This is definitely a case of where re-reading turns a good book into a great book.

On the plus side, everyone in our family learned a lot from What Mr Darwin Saw. It was fascinating to discover more about the journey of the Beagle than just the visit to the Galapagos islands; readers see Darwin in the Andes and Australia, making observations that impact upon his thinking about evolution.

This books is also brilliant as a springboard. It could be used to do so much with – from literacy projects based on diary writing, geography projects following the journey of the Beagle, through to science activities such as comparing fossil remains with their modern day ancestors.

The illustrations are enjoyable and certainly open out Darwin’s story to a wider audience. Do not be fooled, however, by the pictures – this book is a great example of a picture book ideal for older children, say 10-12, although M at 6 has thoroughly enjoyed it, and J at 3 will happily sit and listen whilst her older sister, inspired by Darwin’s story, asks all sorts of questions I don’t know the answer to!

Having lapped up What Mr Darwin Saw we felt the best way to celebrate Darwin’s contribution to science was to create our own evolutionary tree of life.

The Open University Tree of Life poster

Once we had the basic relationships for animals sorted, we set about creating a 3D tree of life. We gathered a selection of wind-lopped branches from our garden and the nearby park. We chose the largest branch to be the trunk of our tree, and into the trunk of our tree we drilled 15 holes approximately equal distances down the trunk.

After our shed experience inspired by Findus, M was keen to try out the electric drill. Because of the size of our “trunk” we had to do the drilling in the kitchen. Because of the size of our “branches” we used a flat drill bit rather than a regular drill bit.

As you can see J didn’t like the sound of the drill, but M adored it! The raw power in her hands!

Once drilled we put our trunk in a pot of sand and hotglued our “branches” into the drilled holes. Our bare tree was ready!

Next up I printed out images of all the living things we were to include in our tree, this time extending what we had learned already with animals to include fungi, plants and bacteria. The girls coloured in the images and we stuck them to card. The images we used were of a chimpanzee, a lemur, a rabbit, a lion, an elephant, a kangaroo, a duck, a frog, a fish, a starfish, a tarantula, a jellyfish, a mushroom, a sunflower and a type of bacteria.

Then we hung our various life forms from our tree of life in the correct order ie with the life form most distantly related to us on the lowest branch, up to the life form most closely related to us hanging on the branch next to the top of the tree. At the very top of the tree we hung a picture of a person which M had drawn.

Finally, we brought everything together with streamers of DNA – paper party streamers, thrown in pairs to create a approximation to strings of double helixes. As the streamers were thrown the twisting paper looked quite a lot like DNA but by the time the streamers were on the tree, their helix features were for the most part lost! Still, a bit of discussion about DNA went down well with turning our tree of life into a decorated Christmas tree for non-Creationists.

Whilst working out how we are related to lions, ducks and mushrooms we listened to:

We also enjoyed listening to Richard Milner, the singing Darwinian scholar (!) – you can watch a nice video about him on the New York Times website here.


Other activities which might work well alongside reading What Mr Darwin Saw include:

There are loads of online resources for learning about evolution. Here are some I enjoyed whilst teaching myself about the things I’ve forgotten since school, inspired by What Mr Darwin Saw:

Over the next few posts I’ll be reviewing as many as possible of the six books shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2011, an award that celebrates the best recent books that communicate science to young people. The winner will be announced on December 1st.




Disclosure: I received my copy of this book from the publisher. This review, however, reflect my own and honest opinion.

This week’s host for Nonfiction Monday is Anamaria at books together. Do click on through to see what other books are included in this week’s celebration of children’s nonfiction books.

Photo: Marxchivist

This A-Z book of single words each individually illustrated is a great introduction to Australian, and more particularly Aboriginal culture. Some words are instantly recognisable as “Australian”, such as joey, possum, didgeridoo or boomerang, whilst others were new to me and my kids eg quandong (a tree bearing bright red, edible fruit), quokka (a small wallaby found on Rottnest and Bald islands off the coast of Western Australia), willy-willy (a spiralling wind of dust, like a small whirlwind) and yabby (an edible crayfish).

There’s a third group of words which we initially wondered why they had been selected as especially Australian eg sun and snowflake, but that’s where the glossary at the back of the book came in very helpful – for most of the words which appear in the book there is a sentence or two about them, explaining what the word means (“wobbegong: a type of shark with a flat body that lives on the bottom of the sea“) or why it has been included (“sun: According to Aboriginal dreaming, the sun came out of the earth. The sun is central to the Aboriginal flag.“)

Through just a small selection of Australian vocabulary M, J and I have been able to explore and discuss and think about lots of different aspects of Australian Aboriginal culture and for this alone the book is a welcome addition on our bookshelves, but I’d be lying if I pretended it wasn’t the illustrations that keep bringing us back to read the book again and again.

Bronwyn Bancroft’s father was Bundjalung – the Bundjalung people are Australian Aborigines whose homeland is on the northern coastal areas of New South Wales (Australia) and the illustrations in this book are so-called “dot” art, perhaps the most recognisable form of Aboriginal painting (click here for a helpful introduction to Australian Indigenous art).

We all adore the illustrations – you can’t help but feel cheerful when you look at them but I also have one tiny gripe about the artwork. Although the book includes great contextual information on the words chosen, there is no background information on the pictures and painting technique, and I think this is a lost opportunity. For example, I would have liked to find out if “dot” art is common to all Aboriginal groups, or whether it is a specifically Bundjalung tradition (perhaps a blog reader can give us some information here? )

Photo: BotheredByBees

With such delicious images of course we were inspired to try our own hand at dot painting. I prepared the ground by painting black outlines of several animals, which the girls then filled in with dots – we used corks, pen lids and circular sponges to create a variety of dot sizes.

It was an easy but very satisfying project with results that made us smile just as much as the illustrations in Possum and Wattle!

Possum and Wattle – My Big Book of Australian Words *** (3 stars)

Whilst we “dotted” we listened to….

Other Australian activities we might get up to include:

It would be really interesting to have an Australian perspective on Possum and Wattle – My Big Book of Australian Words – I know that when I see similar things about England or Britain I often wince at the hackneyed stereotypes (although here’s one I haven’t yet read which I would like to see) that are reproduced. Please do leave a comment and let us know what you think! Or if you’re not Australian, are there any ABC books from your own country which you think provide an exceptionally good cultural introduction (to “insiders” or “outsiders”, for want of better words)?

The first contribution to Fantastic Fiction for Kids in 2010 comes from Kristine, a stay at home mother to two girls aged 3 and 11 months, who writes a lovely, down to earth blog called Bilbified where she documents the crafting, playing, sewing and other doing her family get up to in Western Australia. Kristine is relatively new to world of blogging and is “enthusiastic about being part of a community of like minded people, generously sharing their ideas, inspiration and life“.

Kristine chose “Australia” as her theme and with Australia Day coming up in just under three week’s time, I’m sure you’ll find some suggestions here that you’ll want to reserve through your library if not also add to your book wish list.

The Hidden Forest by Jeannie Baker
Although Jeannie Baker is an English author this book is set in Tasmania. It tells a lovely simple story about a boy named Ben who is fishing for a big fish but loses his trap. His friend Sophie helps him recover his trap and in doing so overcome his fearfulness of the ocean. “But now, Ben see things differently … He sees how wonderful these creatures are here in their mysterious, hidden world. He feels this is where they belong.” The illustrations are a beautiful collage of collected materials, clay, resin and seawater. This was a favourite of my older daughter for a long time when she around 18m to 2 years. I’m not sure why this book appealed so much – maybe the simple story, maybe the beautiful illustrations or maybe just the magical underwater world.

Sailing Home by Colin Thompson
Another non-Australian but he’s lived here for the past 15 years! The family (and a stow-a-way mouse who you can find in most pictures) wakes one morning to find the tide has come in and they’re house is adrift. They have this amazing adventure and see different sights and animals as they travel from the colder waters through to the warmer waters.

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
The story of a little bat that loses her mother and lives for a while with a family of baby birds where she has to act like a bat to fit in. “How can we be so different and feel so much alike?” mused Flitter. “And how can we feel so different and be so much alike?” wondered Pip. This book is a new favourite as my daughter is now able to enjoy longer stories. My daughter has a strong emotional response to this story. I guess for a 3 year old the thought of losing her mother is probably her greatest fear.

Bunyips Don’t by by Sally Odgers, illustrated by Kim Gamble
Bunyips are mythical creatures that live in waterholes. Old Bunyip is teaching Young Bunyip all the things that bunyips don’t – dance, sing, live on the sunny side of the creek. One day Young Bunyip discovers that Old Bunyip was wrong – Bunyips can have fun too! As Bunyip discovers fun the pictures become more colourful and fun too. This one is really enjoyable to read out loud particularly because Old Bunyip is so grumpy. I must warn you though his language is he calls Young Bunyip names like “fat-head” and “hammer-nose” and my husband edits them out when he reads this story.

Sebastian Lives in a Hat by Thelma Catterwell, illustrated by Kerry Argent
This book tells the story of a little baby wombat that is orphaned when a car hits his mother. He lives in a brown wooly hat. This book has really simple text and tells of how animal cares look after orphans. I must say my daughter’s favourite bit is when his hat has to go in the wash because he wees in it.

Snap by Marcia Vaughan, illustrated by Sascha Hutchinson.
MahRoo is too tired to play with Joey today. Joey finds lots of other animals to play with until one animal’s game is a little too scary. The story ends with MahRoo ready to play but Joey just wants the safety of his pouch. This book has a few rhymes that are repeated which adds to the enjoyment of reading this aloud ” What do you say? Do you know any games to play?” “Please stay. Don’t go away” said Joey “We can play together all day.” There are also some lovely examples of language play, such as Twisker the Mouse teaching Joey to play Hide-and-squeak. The pictures are torn paper collages.

If you’d like to know more about children’s books in Australia here are some starting points:

As for some appropriate music to put on you could do worse that anything by The Mudcakes or The Mighty Buzzniks, both Aussie bands for kids. Or for something completely different how about the short and sweet Kangeroo piece in Saint Saen’s Carnival of the Animals?

Photo: Sam Ilic Photography - Stage 88

Kristine tells me that Aussies are pretty laid back in their celebrations on Australia Day – “A typical Australia Day for many would be a swim / surf at the beach, a bbq with mates – maybe a bit of backyard cricket or listen to Triple J’s top 100 songs for the year, followed by watching the fireworks in the evening.” Swimming in the sea might not be an option for all of us at the moment, but we could try:

Now do pop over to Bilbified and say hello to Kristine – if you want somewhere to start I particularly like this post about the bug theme birthday party held recently for Kristine’s eldest daughter and this one, with a great tutorial for making a flower brooch from fabric. And don’t forget to leave us a comment with your favourite books on an Australian theme!