Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Ameena Bibi

Book Title: The Tree of Life: A Book Depicting the Life of Charles Darwin, Naturalist,
Geologist & Thinker
Author: Peter Sis
Genre: Biography
Illustrator: Peter Sis
Publisher/Year: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003
Evaluate the Book for the following elements
Style and Language: Using examples for the book, explain the following: Word
choices, dialogue, rhythm, rhyme and sentence length. Share unexpected insights or
interesting information the reader learns from this story. (5 points)
The Tree of Life: is a book depicting the life of Charles Darwin, the famous
nineteenth-century naturalist using the text from Darwin’s writings, diary entries. The
book explores Darwin’s life, work, and sources of inspiration. The information the
readers learn from this book is the theory of evolution the relationship between living
and extinct organisms.

Character: With examples from the book, provide the following- (5 points)
Who is the main character?
How can the reader relate to the character?
Who are the supporting characters?
The main character in Th Tree of Life is Charles Darwin himself.
The readers can relate by learning that all living creatures are related. All life on Earth
was microbial, gene transfer explains the diversity we see, and that through
extinction, some of branches get cut down.
The supporting characters are the people in Darwin’s life and his dog (Polly).

Plot: Summarize the major events of the story (6 points)

The plot summary of The Tree of Life is the big idea theta species were descended
from common ancestors. They may look different today but it is due to the
differences that evolved after their lineages split. It also describes the relationships
between organisms, both living and extinct.

Setting: Explain the place and time of this book. (2 points)

Theme: What is the main message of this book? (2 points)
The setting of this book is based on Darwin’s life, some were the past when he was
younger with his father and some were the present. Some of the setting was during
his voyage in HMS Beagle in 1836 with many of his ship-mates and the various
geological and biological phenomena.
The theme of the book is about the Tree of life. The theoretical insight of how a
genus of related species might originate by divergences from a starting point. The
voyage on the HMS Beagle to the Galapagos Island and South America continent.

Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories
Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2
points)
The illustration of this book is with reproduction of colors and duo tone drawing,
charts, maps, and gatefold spread. The illustration is more of a realism illustration,
the images of the writing is to depict the real world in acute detail. A phylogenetic
tree is used to show the evolution of relationships among different organisms.

Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk):
(2 points)
The media choice of this book is watercolors, crayons, pencils, and markers. The
illustrations are duo tone of warm colors.

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in the
illustrations: (3)
Line: The lines in this book are straight.
Shapes: The shapes shown in this book are circles, rectangles, and shapes that
describe humans and animals.
Color: The colors used in this book are warm duo tone colors. Some the colors that
are visible seem to be natural earthly tones.
Texture: The texture in this book is smooth as the illustrations are the sketches of
Darwin’s drawings turned into a picture using paint. It is also images that explains the
topic and the concept of evolution.
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space and
all pages the same or different). (3)
The page design of this book uses illustrations that are pointillistic images. The page
design is a gatefold spread. There are writing and images are on both pages, it keeps
the readers engaged and it launches many readers personal voyage of discovery.
Child Development Theory: Choose either Piaget, Erickson or Social Emotional to
describe the connection to the book Chose 1 only (5 points)
Piaget:
Name the stage Formal Operational and the age 12 years onwards
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:

In this development children understand the world through hypothetical thinking and
scientific reasoning. The Tree of Life is a book describing evolution and the similarities
and differences of species. The tree has been the unifying principle for understanding
the history of life on Earth. Children when growing up have questions as to how
certain things came into existences. Darwin’s tree of life is a great book to teach
children about the life on earth and all living species share certain things in common,
example like genetic information as DNA.

Erickson:
Name the stage_____________________ and the age_______________________
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:

Emotional Development:
Identify the age: _________________________
Explain the social development for this age and how the book relates
to the emotional level you chose:

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: 3 highly recommended

Why?

I would recommend this book to second grade students to read to understand the
theory of evolution and for teachers to use this book to teach this topic as well. The
book uses illustration from Darwin’s notes and his life events to gather information
from his voyage to the coast of South America. Darwin explored the continent and
island, including the Galapagos. The voyage was by far the most important event in his
life as Darwin said it determined my whole career.