Darwin's Rival: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Search for Evolution

by Christiane Dorion, Harry Tennant (Illustrator)

Overview

A beautifully illustrated volume follows a lesser-known Victorian naturalist and explorer on his global journeys — and reveals how he developed his own theory of evolution.

Everyone knows Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist who proposed a theory of evolution. But not everyone knows the story of Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s friend and rival who simultaneously discovered the process of natural selection. This sumptuously illustrated book tells Wallace’s story, from his humble beginnings to his adventures in the Amazon rain forest and Malay Archipelago, and demonstrates the great contribution he made to one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536209327
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/17/2020
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	12.70(w) x 10.80(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

About the Author

Christiane Dorion’s passion for writing children's books stems from the thousands of questions she asked as a child, many of which remained unanswered: How big is the universe? When did life begin? Originally from Canada, she moved to the United Kingdom to get a Ph.D. in environmental education before working for World Wildlife Federation, United Kingdom, and later becoming an educational consultant. Her award-winning books are intended to inspire children to explore the complex systems of the world we live in and help protect it. Christiane Dorion lives in Surrey, U.K.

Harry Tennant is London-born, but escaped to the coves of Cornwall to study illustration at University College Falmouth before returning to the capital of the United Kingdom once more. He now works as a freelance illustrator, using a mixture of hand-drawn and digital media to create his illustrations, and primarily produces artwork for magazines and book covers. Harry Tennant lives and works in Hackney, U.K.

Editorial Reviews

Tennant gives the slightly oversized volume the feel of a collector’s album with ranks of accurately drawn tropical beetles, birds, and other specimens. These he intersperses with portraits of eminent colleagues, images of collecting gear, and verdant scenes of the white explorer at work either alone or with one or more Indigenous assistants (the latter only sometimes identified, or even mentioned, in the narrative). A case study of science at its idealistic and paradigm-changing best.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Many well-chosen quotes bring Wallace’s lively voice into the narrative. Reminiscent of detailed linocut prints using several coordinated colors, the handsome digital illustrations are equally effective in creating maps, portraits, displays of collected insects, and panoramic scenes of Wallace crossing oceans, deserts, and rain forests. An absorbing introduction to a notable figure in science history.
—Booklist (starred review)

From the Publisher

04/03/2020

Gr 5 Up—Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was as important as Charles Darwin in the formulation of the theory of evolution, but never as well known. This oversize biography shows how the poverty Wallace experienced in his early life influenced his interest in the natural world in his native England, and then concentrates on his far-flung research trips from 1848 to 1862. He was astonished by the incredible variety of species he observed in the Amazon and the Malay Archipelago. Many of these beetles, butterflies, birds, and mammals are illustrated in muted shades of green, blue, brown, and orange. Digitally produced to look like woodblock prints, their style gives a sense of the past. The observations from Wallace's journals interspersed throughout illuminate his detailed thought processes as he began to recognize the impact of geographic isolation upon the differentiation of similar species. The work he undertook was filled with dangers—fires, shipwrecks, tropical diseases—yet he never faltered in his quest to discover as much as he could about life on Earth. Darwin considered Wallace a colleague and wrote, "He rates me much too highly and himself much too lowly." An illustrated glossary is included. VERDICT An important addition to library collections as an introduction to early scientific methods, cooperation between scientists, and an inspiration to would-be naturalists. —Frances E. Millhouser, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA

School Library Journal

★ 2020-03-01
A handsomely designed tribute to the brilliant naturalist who very nearly scooped Darwin.

It was “a case of great minds thinking alike,” Dorion writes. But while Darwin had slowly, cautiously articulated his hypotheses to himself over decades in his country home, they came as flashes of insight to Wallace in the course of scouring the jungles of the Amazon and the Malay Archipelago for exotic specimens to sell to European collectors. It was Wallace’s 1858 letter to Darwin that spurred the latter to go public—and Wallace’s salutary lack of ego that turned what might have been a bitter battle over claims of precedence into a long and cordial relationship. Though the author skimps on Wallace’s later career and misleadingly tags the heart of his proposed theory as “natural selection” (that was Darwin’s term, not Wallace’s), she offers clear pictures of his character and his passion for natural science while making generous use of direct quotations. Tennant gives the slightly oversized volume the feel of a collector’s album with ranks of accurately drawn tropical beetles, birds, and other specimens. These he intersperses with portraits of eminent colleagues, images of collecting gear, and verdant scenes of the white explorer at work either alone or with one or more Indigenous assistants (the latter only sometimes identified, or even mentioned, in the narrative).

A case study of science at its idealistic and paradigm-changing best. (map, glossary, reading list) (Picture book/biography. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews