Life: The First Four Billion Years: The Story of Life from the Big Bang to the Evolution of Humans

by Martin Jenkins, Grahame Baker-Smith (Illustrator)

Award-winning children's book creators Martin Jenkins and Grahame Baker-Smith team up for a large-scale look at our planet, from the big bang to the dinosaurs and beyond.

Before humans took their first steps, there were billions of years of vibrant and varied life-forms on Earth. Discover the story of our planet during this time, from the formation of the universe to the first mammals and all the incredible life that flourished in between. Covering ice ages and fossils, the first life in the sea and on land, the time of the dinosaurs, and the rise of mammals, Martin Jenkins navigates through millennia of prehistory in a style both enthralling and accessible. With superb illustrations from Kate Greenaway Medal winner Grahame Baker-Smith, this is a captivating journey through the life of our planet before we called it ours.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Evolution, Nature, Animals, Childrens

80 pages, Hardcover

First published September 10, 2019

About the author

Martin Jenkins, a conservation biologist, has written several nonfiction books for children, including Ape, Grandma Elephant’s in Charge, The Emperor’s Egg, and Chameleons Are Cool. He lives in Cambridge, England.

Reviews

[J.L. Slipak · Rating 5 out of 5]

MY THOUGHTS:

I received this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is one incredible, informative and exceptional book. The information contained within its 80 pages is so extraordinary that I've decided to keep it in my library for reference. It's great for kids who might need to do projects for school; the language is geared toward kids who are around the age of eight to adult. :) It could be used by younger children with the aid of an adult.

I've never come across a book of this nature that explains the evolution process, the different periods of development, the path of evolution to the rise of humans in so much detail, in a way that young readers can understand. The artwork... Wowza!

Listen up parents... if you want a book that focuses on evolution for your child to use for school studies, or projects, I can't recommend this book enough. It's loaded with information and illustrations to blow your minds.

This book should be in every school library!

[J. Boo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good advanced children's book on the subject. There's quite a bit of coverage of pre-Ediacaran times, which is a rarity in the prehistoric life genre.

I'm hot and cold on the illustrations, which were numerous and large. This is a style that, oddly, works really well in some pictures, and not in others. Something about the composition, maybe? I'm waffling between 3 and 4 stars, but DS2(6) was interested enough that I'll give it the higher ranking.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous. The illustrations just pull you right in and there are so many fantastic looking creatures and organisms and bits and pieces of information. It really makes you feel the weight of four billion years.

[Shauna Yusko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like an oversized Eyewitness book in layout and design. Illustrations are a strength.

But it is SO oversized... not going to fit well on any library shelf I’ve ever worked in.

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful book. The illustrations are stunning and the information is fascinating and up to date (although of course this area of science is ever-evolving.) I wish we'd had this during our first dive into prehistory in our homeschool, but I'm excited to have it now for the family to enjoy and when we come back to prehistory studies this will make a beautiful addition to our studies.

[Jeana Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved, loved, loved this book! It’s mostly the illustrations but complex eras and evolutions are broken down into bite-sized nuggets perfect for any introduction to the concept of evolution and early history of our planet. I kinda hope they continue the series with another book focusing on the many homo species and ending with our current Homo sapiens (modern humans) because that’s just as interesting and complex.

[Laura Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Students who are obsessed with science will find all their questions about early evolution answered by this large format, illustrated book. A pull out section in the beginning describes the first 2 billion years of Earth’s history, explains how we classify life, demystifies how we know what we know about our earth’s history (fossils), and highlights the incomplete nature of the fossil record. Large pencil and pen illustrations of ancient alien creatures accompany text about each age of earth’s history. Scientific theories are presented with reasons for those theories, but it’s clear that this science is evolving over time just like the organisms did. Occasional two page elaborate color illustrations are a welcome break from the difficult text and inspire wonder. As the reader progresses through earth’s history, we learn that predation was a “major force in evolution” in terms of body shape and composition and probably even influencing the decision of organisms to move from the ocean to the land. Overall, this is a beautiful overview of the evolution of life on earth. Includes a timeline with mass extinctions clearly marked and a glossary.
Students who are curious about how life evolved on earth will want to spend some time with this book.
The large size will make this book difficult to shelve.It will likely find a small audience due to the difficult nature of the text. For some students, however, it will be just the right amount of complexity. I wish it had included resources for further study like recommended books and videos.

[American Mensa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fold-able book is really engaging to students from grades 5 thru 8. It would be a great book for curious people with an interest in science, astronomy or history. It covers all the topics from the emergence of the star that would become the Earth’s sun, the ice ages, periods of mass extinction, and the biodiversity in our planet as of now. It goes into great detail on how everything we see in our day to day life came into existence. Each page has exhaustive diagrams and some pages include a fold-able addition. This feature makes it interactive and fun to read. The book is filled with knowledge and accurately describes every event that took place from four billion years ago. I gave this book 5 stars because the pictures and the interactive features made it entertaining while providing knowledge about what happened before we were born.
Reviewed by Madhalasa I, 14 North Texas Mensa

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that does a pretty good job of explaining evolution and deep time on this planet in an engaging and interesting way that would probably appeal to its target audience. I like the artwork in many places, especially for all the weird invertebrate things that existed early in the history of life, but I felt like the later, vertebrate creatures were maybe a bit cartoonish, or at least had features that made them seem more fantastic than like they were real animals. Also, the coordination of text and illustrative examples was a little bit lacking at times.

[Librariann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthy successor to my other favorite to recommend history of life book, Evolving Planet, which was published alongside the Field Museum exhibit but which is growing ever-so-much-more dated with each passing year.

It's a lot to parse, with no punches pulled on scientific terminology. A rich place to start an exploration, whether kid or adult.

[Doug D'jay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the worst audiobook. There are a lot of illustrations in the original hard copy. This audiobook is essentially just reading the captions describing the length of each of the drawings of the forms of life plus maybe a paragraph for two at the top of each page. Best thing about it is that it's very short.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really cool oversized book with great pictures. It's a little intense for my crew right now but I'd like to revisit it when they are older. We skimmed over some of the text but covered all the big ideas.

Mom
(kids age 4 and 6)

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has captured our whole family’s imagination and we are lamenting the day it must return to the library. The illustrations are FANTASTIC and dramatic and so beautifully textured and detailed to look at. The text is just as fascinating. Child gives it ‘all the stars’.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Large-format dramatic pictures of very odd living creatures spanning the course of life on Earth, showing that Earth life has more than dinosaurs and humans. Blocks of fairly dense text explain the timeline.

[Elliefint · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so cool!

[Amanda Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking for the perfect book for a biology teacher? This book is beautifully illustrated and fascinating. For people who think that picture books are for babies, this book might go over your head.

[Giselle]

DNF'd 31%

[Jonathan Maas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good, I hope to write a full review shortly !

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very simplified history of life.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid overview of the world’s evolution. It’s nicely divided into short chapters that make it easily digested.

[Nolan Brendel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it because there were prehistoric things in it and I love prehistoric things.

[Whispering · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book. It was big and the illustrations were great and helped me learn and remember a lot of things. I'm really interested in pre-history so this book was a really good resource. I can tell the author put a lot of effort into writing this and I love it. I read it alongside Prehistoric: Dinosaurs, Megalodons, and Other Fascinating Creatures of the Deep Past and it was very informative
I do wish some key terms were explained better and more thoroughly so I could understand it better.

Overall, 4.75/5
Great for kids

[Elizabeth]

I think this would have been better (and made more sense) as a book than as an audiobook.

[Jory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book, fun read.

[Cat Strawberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a stunning book and filled with so much interesting information about how life evolved on our planet from billions of years ago to the age humans and animals of today. This amazing book is around A3 in size and is filled with very thick matt pages of text and beautiful illustrations. The whole book has a lovely feel to it, with shiny bronze lettering on the cover and some material lining around the edge and corners, although being a hardback it is rather heavy.

The book begins with the origins of life, the start of our galaxy and planet. There is an interesting double page fold out at the start adding a timeline of what was happening on earth billions of years ago as it adapted to accommodate life, as well as interesting information on how life is classified. Although this might sound a little advanced, the text is really interesting, well written for children to understand and kept to manageable small sections with images making it very interesting to read. Every double page after that focuses on different organisms and creatures (life) as it evolves over millions of years.

I really have enjoyed reading this book and have to admit that I couldn’t put it down. I ended up reading it all in one session. I have always been a fan of the prehistoric age but I never knew how many different forms of life have existed over the years, especially those that existed before the dinosaurs (before the triassic age). Every double page has the name of the period in history as well as how many millions of years ago it was, in the top corner of the page, which is helpful as lots of pages often span just one era. Every double page has something different on it, from strange early organisms and sea creatures to early fungi, dinosaurs and even the early mammals (which look very rat-like!). All the pages are in chronological order so you can see how life was evolving and you can recognise some early versions of the creatures we know today!

Every page was so fascinating to read, but what made them all the more interesting was definitely the illustrations. Every page had some very detailed illustrations, sometimes looking like pencil sketches while a few images featured more colour, or colourful backgrounds. These pictures are so beautiful and so life-like, I couldn’t help but spend a long time just mesmerised by the images and imagining what these creatures would have been like. There is a glossary at the end of the book which is helpful if you don’t understand all the terms used, as well as an additional timeline.

I can’t believe how amazing this book is and how much I’ve learned reading this. I was a fan of dinosaurs and the prehistoric age and have always loved reading about it, but this book is about so much more. The dinosaur ages (triassic, jurrasic and cretaceous) only feature towards the end of the book while so much of it is about the life that came before including the plantlife and creatures that look dinosaur-like. It was even fascinating reading how small single cell organisms became bigger over time with multiple cells working together and how this happened. The whole book is just so interesting and I would recommend it to everyone! The text would be difficult for some younger children to understand, it’s definitely more suited to older children/middle grade ages and above, but I’d recommend this to teens and adults too, and I’m sure some younger children would love to look at the pictures of the creatures too (it’s what I used to do when I was very young and fascinated by dinosaur books)! There is so much information here and presented in such a great and understandable way and it’s a book that will continue to be looked at again. I just wish this I’d had this when I was a child!
-Thanks to Walker Books for a free copy for review.

[Ash Thorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

We listened to the audiobook as we looked at the pictures in the hardcover book; it was an excellent way to do read it. The narrator did an excellent job.

[Bob Small · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Large format. It pretty much does what it says on the tin. The art is fantastic, great line drawings and good colour illustrations. It covers the subject to a good depth but it does not over complicate things. The big picture is drawn well and there are time lines and a good glossary. OK. That all seems pretty good but this summary has been dry. Let me put it another way. I LOVED THIS BOOK! It is beautiful and clever and unusual. I would buy it again in an instant. Its suitable for a bright 10 year old or an adult. It will speak across generations.

[Victoria Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic book. It is a large size and absolutely jam packed with information and beautiful diagrams and pictures to illustrate the text. Although at times it can be hard to follow, just because of the mind boggling science it’s presenting, I can imagine children and adults alike would find this book really interesting and engaging, enthused about science and life on earth pre-humans!