Twee Darwin books for children. Totally twee.
“Child-sized depictions of Charles Darwin to grow on” (May 23, 2011) are discussed by Katherine Pandora, who researches & teaches about science, the public & popular culture at the University of Oklahoma:
I was most amused to find that, despite the fact that the voyage figured extravagantly both in content and in the illustrations of the pile of children’s Darwin books that I had brought home to study, the picture my daughter chose to draw owed nothing to the rainforest theme which would supposedly transfix childish imaginations, but instead depicted a much more sedate locale, fitting comfortably within the domestic backyard setting of a local neighborhood in the northern hemisphere. And here the influence I think of the second unusual Darwin book, The Humblebee Hunter by Deborah Hopkinson kicks in, for in this author’s story the science literally does take place at home, as Darwin’s daughter Henrietta and other family members join her father to investigate how many times a bee will visit a flower in a minute.Once again, this story has fictional elements (while Darwin investigated creatures in his home environment, and the children sometimes assisted, we have no record of the observational study Hopkinson sketches), and the fictionalization allows for a girl “naturalist” to take center stage.
Yes, fiction. Read More ›