“There’s a flame of magic inside every stone and every flower, every bird that sings and every frog that croaks. There’s magic in the trees and the hills and the river and the rocks, in the sea and the stars and the wind, a deep, wild magic that’s as old as the world itself. It’s in you too, my darling girl, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I’m sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars.”
Kate Forsyth, The Puzzle Ring
The littlest children often have the biggest questions.
These two books are designed to answer some of the very biggest
The Story of Life: A First Book About Evolution is a brilliant book for introducing littlest readers to the story of life on Earth.
Beginning at the beginning with exploding volcanoes and oceans of lava to the first shapeless blobs called cells.
From the world’s first animals in the ocean to plants and animals invading the land.
Icy darkness and dinosaurs lead on to monkeys, apes and man.
We adore Catherine Barr. This is a writer who knows how to explain complex ideas to children in ways that engage, inform and inspire. This is a book my children love returning to and will ask me to read with them.
They love that the information is written in a friendly way with humour in the bright and brilliant illustrations. Nearly 4 billion years of earth’s history in bite size chunks perfect for little readers to read and remember, just enough to help them begin to understand and long to learn more.
How Life on Earth Began is a more detailed and complex guide for slightly older children.
The long landscape pages are perfect for timelines and large scale drawings full of intricate details.
This book is stunning. A mix of pencil diagrams with interactive elements and beautiful painted illustrations.
This feels too pretty to be a text book but every page is packed with information. There is a whole lot of learning involved in reading this incredible book.
We learn how the Earth took shape, how the moon was formed. We see the beginning of microscopic life, early continents and first ecosystems.
This book does not shy away from using scientific vocabulary and yet still reads like poetry.
I love the voice of this book. My older two children have gotten completely lost in these wonderful pages of words and pictures, in the layers of history and science, geography and geology.
We have read lots of books on the story of life on our planet and this is one of the best. It is so carefully put together and celebrate designed. It is a book once read will never be forgotten. It would make a beautiful gift for readers of all ages.
These two books are perfect for introducing children to the long history of the Earth and inspiring them to want to protect and preserve its future.