LIFE (AS WE KNOW IT)

A quick overview of our universe’s history from the Big Bang on, with some wriggle room left in for future discoveries.

“We know this much is true,” Hanaor begins before amending that statement: “We think this much is true”; “We think this much is a truth.” She then provides a tidy summary of stellar and planetary origins, the beginning of life (and, she wisely notes, death) on Earth, and the evolution of multicellular creatures from blobs to dinosaurs to a certain smart but destructive hominid. “This is a story,” she writes, and it won’t end with us; new life will continue to arise on this planet, and perhaps life as we know it (or don’t) on other planets, too. The theme of change over time likewise carries Schmal’s atmospheric illustrations through stellar blasts to galleries of early life forms that transform through the eons to hairy primates, followed by polluted cityscapes, then abstract representations of future life and deep starry vistas. The author simplifies a bit toward the end while listing examples of things that “don’t make sense” (black holes and quantum superpositions), but she effectively delivers her message that, for all the progress we’ve made, we still have more to learn about where we live and where we’re going.

A thought-provoking tale for young wonderers.