Synopses & Reviews
There are about as many tomorrows as there have been yesterdays, about as many new kinds of life to come as there have been old kinds of life in the past. So far, you are the only kind of life on this earth that can think about that . . . -Sara Stein
AN ENTHRALLING JOURNEY THROUGH DEEP TIME, WHERE YOUNG READERS . . .
IMAGINE eating dinner at a Stone Age Farm, joining a herd of three-toed horses, climbing a mounting under the sea, sniffing air that's 5 billion years old, befriending a lovely lugworm.
EXPLORE messages from the past on local beaches, mountains, woodlands, and swamps.
PRESERVE seastars, snakeskins, dragonflies, and pawprints.
INTERPRET natural codes in songs birds sing, and games puppies play.
MAKE a plankton net, a view box, a plant press, stone tools, natural dyes, seaweed pudding, leather.
Hundreds of photographs and drawings throughout
Praise for THE SCIENCE BOOK
"An aid in answering those endless questions pertaining to the ordinary functions of life that adults seem so permanently at a loss to answer." --Booklist
Synopsis
How did life begin? What makes the continents move? Are Birds really dinosaurs?
The answers to such questions can be discovered by reading the ancient messages left on the earth. Sara Stein, author of The Science Book and The Body Book, involves children, who are earth's newest inhabitants, in exploring beaches, mountains, woodlands, and swamps and unlocking the ancient secrets of the world. Scores of fascinating projects range from raising tadpoles and preserving snake skins and paw prints to making a plankton net, a plant press, and seaweed pudding. Hundreds of drawings and photographs are featured throughout. Selection of the Children's Book-of-the-Month Club. Winner of the New York Academy of Sciences Children's Science Book Award, First Prize. Suitable for ages 10-14. 73,000 copies in print.
About the Author
In addition to The Evolution Book, Sara Stein is the author of The Body Book and The Science Book. Together, her books have over 345,000 copies in print.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE: SETTING OUT
DAWN
4000 MILLION YEARS AGO
THE CRATON * CLAY ORGANISMS * BACTERIAL SMELLS * THE OXYGEN CRISIS
Gray Granite
Black Brimstone
Pages in the Rock Book
Micromineral Collection
Hometown Geology
Rock Hardness Kit
Molecule Making
Where Life Began?
Proteins in Action
The Smallest Factory
Raising Bacteria
The Bacterium's Compass
Go Ahead in Glycolyze
Bring 'Em Back Alive
Chromosomes in Action
A Lifetime's Knowledge
1000 MILLION YEARS AGO
SEXUAL SEAWEEDS * JELLY ANIMALS * AN EXPLOSION OF SHELLS
Seavegetables
How to Make a Plankton Net
Algae Collection
Pretty, and Pretty Useful
Small Worlds
Sponging
Moon Babies
Seashore Guide
The Aliens
A Taste of Worms
Worm Hunt
The Oldest Sea Monster
Shell Shapes
Beachcombing
Shell Hunt
Mollusk Stew
500 MILLION YEARS AGO
THE DROWNED CONTINENT * STRANGE FISH * LEGS, PINCERS, CLAWS, AND FEELERS
Viewbox
Picked Urchins
Dried Sea Stars
The Long Haul
Gill Bones to Jaw Bones
Know a Fish by Its Shape
Fool the School
White Meat, Dark Meat
One of Billions
Shell Games
The Crab's Secret
Crayfish Trap
The Relict
NOON
400 MILLION YEARS AGO
RISING LAND * GREENING SHORES * AN INVASION OF INSECTS AND SPIDERS
Creeping Crust
A Grain of Sand
Green Compass
Moss Milk
Vein Patterns
Looking Down
Mushroom Mystery
The Sneezing Truth
Web Hunt
Creepy Crawlies
Millipede Motion
Water Babies
The Lore of the Lure
Jungle Beasts
Odd Bodies
300 MILLION YEARS AGO
THE COLLISION OF PANGEA * COAL FORESTS * WATERTIGHT TREES * FURRY REPTILES
Old Salt
Alphabet Soup
Your Evolutionary Address
Jelly Eggs
Hi, Sis!
Gesundheit!
Wood to Carbon
Saving Old-Timers
Most Years and Mast Years
The All-Purpose Band-Aid
The Anatomy of an Egg
All Balled Up
Outside and Inside
Not Too Warm, Not Too Cold
Inside and Outside
Boasts and Bluffs
Catch That Tail
The Better to Eat You With
Jawbone to Earbone
The Heart of the Crocodile
200 MILLION YEARS AGO
A GREAT EXTINCTION * EGG LAYING MAMMALS * WARM-BLOODED DINOSAURS
Nightworlds
D.O.R.
Out of the Egg, Into the Uterus
Multiplication
Look-Alikes
And More Look-Alikes
Foot Molds and Casts
Raising Water
Bad Lifestyles, Poor Posture
Stone Paths
Track Tales
A Modern Dinosaur?
Dinosaur Nests?
Fancy Stuff
The Price of a Meal
Bird Callers
Recording Bird Sounds
Bird Deli
Then There's the Phalarope
Come Back Bluebird!
Northerner or Southerners?
Down the Chimney
Africans in Boston
100 MILLION YEARS AGO
FRUITS AND FLOWERS * A MULTIPLICATION OF INSECTS * CHEMICAL WARFARE
Green Flowers
Ghost Flowers
Blossom Shapes
Bird Gardens
Seed Shapes
How to Build a Plant Press
1,2,3 Go
Sow Plants . . .
. . . Reap Pests
Close Up
See the Bee's Knees
How to Make an Insect Net
Try It Yourself
How to Use an Insect Guide
A Collecting Bottle
Tree Talk
Flea Killer
Why Medicines Are Poisons
Something New Under the Sun
Setting Board
On Being an Arrow
Ants as Babysitters
An Oversight
DUSK
60 MILLION YEARS AGO
A COSMIC COLLISION * SHREWS AND BATS * CREODONTS AND CONDYLARTHS
Crash!
Chalk Bubbles
A Terrestrial Food Web
Death Versus Extinction
The Numbers Game
A Whale of a Tale
Hand Dug
The Hand and the Foot of It
And More and More and More and More
Clean as a Bone
Depend on Your Fungus
Whast Not, Want Not
Faithfully, the Sloth
Traitorously, the Fig
Monstera
An Eye for Color
Why Avocados Are Not Extinct
40 MILLION YEARS AGO
THE SPREAD OF GRASS * RODENT HORDES * THE RISE OF THE RODENT EATERS
Haywire Hayfever
Ready or Not, Here I Come!
Wuchaks
The Longest Meal
Double Digesters
Anybody Home?
Giant Squirrels
Kissing Cousins
Albinsim
Spreading Out and Hunkering Down
Plain and Fancy
Nature's Noncompetition Clause
Safe Traps
Funny as a Ferret
Stamp Feet
A Warning About Handling Dead Animals
20 MILLION YEARS AGO
NEW MOUNTAINS * GREAT MIGRATIONS * HORSES, CATS AND CANINES
The Source
Spilling Mountains
Blowing Its Stack
No Strait Lines
No Men Allowed
Shoo Fly!
Exhibition Games
Ride a Ring of Horses
Why the Camel Has Its Hump
Lambikens
The First Dog?
Ganging Up
Winning Chemistry
The Sniff Test
Say It with Your Body
10 MILLION YEARS AGO
A FOOD SHORTAGE * AN APE SOLUTION * THE EVOLUTION OF HUMANS
The Monkey Business
Noah's Ark
Eat Your Jicama, Dear
No, Thank You
Reliving the Past?
Skull Bones
Easy Cutters
Easy Containers
1 MILLION YEARS AGO
THE GREAT ICE AGE * REAL CAVEMEN * FIRST PETS * THE MEANING OF BEING HUMAN
Drowned Coastline
Golf on the Glacier's Edge
Eternal Flames
Rising from the Ashes
Roasting the Old Way
The Why Do We All Look Different?
Com Dasher! Come Prancer!
Skinning and Drying an Animal Skin
Tanning an Animal
Goldenrod Dye
Kinship Snapshots
A Brain Game
Love a Hog
Don't Run Too Soon
The Snow Line
One After Another After Another
How Does Your Garden Grow
Population Explosion
A Wild Meal
Wheat and Tares
Homemade Cheese
A Good Reason to Hate Milk
Learning to Write
Why Pineapple Slices Have Holes
An Odd Number
A Strange Commmand
EPILOGUE: COMING HOME
INDEX
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS