Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. ( )

Non-ficton ish picture book about evolution starting from the big bang and ending up in San Francisco. Local Bay area author. ( )

This book tells the story of the evolution of life from a little dot that explodes in the big bang, to the dinosaurs, to modern-day humans, in a narrative form with really beautiful illustrations. It does a great job of showing the progression of living organisms and is a great place to start talking about adaptations that creatures have to better survive in their environments and why some species survive and others don't. As a social studies integration, it could be used to illustrate the development of human civilizations. The back panel of the book has a timeline of life on earth, which is a neat summary of the narrative.
One thing that's neat is that the end of the book, it talks about humans being these incredible creatures that could learn and create so many things, but still can not answer where the dot came from in the first place. I just thought that was a clever and important little insert that can show students that, as much as we have learned, there are so many aspects of science that we don't know. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It takes us all the way from the Big Bang theory, to the first life forms, to land animals and so on. I could not help but wonder if some parents would be offended if their son/daughter comes home and talks about this book that I shared with him/her. I personally believe in evolution, but there are some who's religion goes completely against the author's words. I love the illustrations. Also, there is a timeline with lots of great information about how we came to be. I will not be reading this book in my class, but I would recommend it to certain friends of mine. I think it's different, and very interesting. ( )