Peter Sís’s picture book biography of Charles Darwin is as complex as Darwin’s contributions to modern science. Beginning with the endpapers, not an inch of any page is left uncovered. Intricate drawings, text boxes, diagrams, and maps are accompanied by several strands of text differentiated by font and size. In one narrative strand, there is an account of Darwin’s life from childhood on. In the second, additional detail about Darwin’s private life is revealed. In the third, readers have access to Darwin’s secret thoughts and hypotheses—ideas he knew were radical and risky to make public. Finally, there are excerpts from Darwin’s journals. The first three threads are significant, because Darwin led a very secret intellectual life in a society that was not always eager to embrace scientific change, particularly not when those discoveries threatened the beliefs of the Christian Church. While the additional source documentation would have been helpful, this is nonetheless a significant work that illuminates Darwin’s life and times for children and teens. (Ages 10–16)

In this brilliant presentation of a revolutionary thinker's life, the picture book becomes an art form

As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men . . .

Charles Darwin was, above all else, an independent thinker who continues even now to influence the way we look at the natural world. His endless curiosity and passion for detail resulted in a wealth of notebooks, diaries, correspondence, and published writings that Peter Sís transforms into a visual treasure trove. A multilayered journey through Darwin's world, The Tree of Life begins with his childhood and traces the arc of his life through university and career, following him around the globe on the voyage of the Beagle, and home to a quiet but momentous life devoted to science and family. Sís uses his own singular vision to create a gloriously detailed panorama of a genius's trajectory through investigating and understanding the mysteries of nature. In pictures executed in fine pen and ink and lush watercolors – cameo portraits, illustrated pages of diary, cutaway views of the Beagle, as well as charts, maps, and a gatefold spread – Peter Sís has shaped a wondrous introduction to Charles Darwin. This title has Common Core connections.

The Tree of Life is a 2003 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year and Notable Children's Book of the Year, and a 2004 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.