We Go Way Back
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
What is life?
How did it start?
Long, long ago, no one knows exactly where or when, a tiny bubble formed that was a Little Bit Different. It was the first living cell. Everyone's ancestor.
And so the story of life begins ...
In this visually stunning and brilliantly devised picture book, Idan Ben-Barak and Philip Bunting lead us through the origin of life on our planet, and how an odd little bubble gave rise to the incredible web of life on Earth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In casual, erudite prose, Ben-Barak (There's a Skeleton Inside You!) explains what is known about how life began. "What is life?" he starts. "You have it.... A starfish has it.... A car doesn't have it." A spiraling line of type provides a simple, memorable formulation: "Life Is the Way That Some Things Make More Things That Are a Lot Like Themselves but Sometimes a Little Bit Different. Sort of." Relaying where life came from, the pages go "way back" to a young world of exploding volcanoes, flowing water, and striking lightning. Though it's not known where or exactly how, lines clarify, elements became molecules, and molecules joined to make small bubbles. Eventually, one "very clever little bubble" was able to produce more bubbles "That Were a Lot Like Itself but Sometimes a Little Bit Different." From there, the process complexifies for "literally billions of years," eventually reaching the present panoply of life on Earth, shown in a family tree so large it sprawls across a gatefold spread. Bunting (Your Planet Needs You) illustrates with punchy, sign-like images that take on visual complexity as the story rolls forward. It's an engaging, lucidly written volume that's refreshingly open about the parts of the sequence that remain unknown. Ages 4–8.
