The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin, by Peter Sis

The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin, by Peter Sis (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2002, 44 pp, ages 6-10) My enchantment with Sis’s work, based on previous encounters (The Wall, Nicky & Vera, Three Golden Keys, Starry Messenger), made this book a must-have when I chanced upon it (for $3, Very Good!). Beyond that, my acquaintance with Darwin is embarrassingly slight, and Sis offered easy access. His intricate illustration style, merging text with detailed images, may be out of vogue. But I love books that reward repeated returns and close examination with a wealth of facts and information. (For a different style with similar effect check out author-illustrator Melissa Sweet, A River of Words, Just the Right Word, Celia Planted a Garden, Some Writer! and more.)

Darwin’s journals, from which Sis represents excerpts with condensed text and his own drawings, relate not only plant and animal observations but encounters with military figures, indigenous peoples, the slave trade, priests, colonialists, markets, miners, natural disasters, and more. It encompasses his reactions and impressions, and the unsurprising statement that, after nearly five years of voyaging, “I loathe, I abhor the sea and all ships which sail upon it.”

More pages are devoted to Darwin’s voyages in South America than to other eras of his life, but the narrative begins with his childhood and continues to his death in 1882. It represents his periods of doubt, discouragement, tragedy, extended study, and publishing success, as well as his family, habits, hobbies, and daily life.