The Tree of Life

by Peter Sis
Peter Sis brings a warm, watercolored texture to the story of Charles Darwin's life. Each page is like something discovered in an attic, or folded into an old atlas on a library shelf. At the same time, Sis makes Darwin seem more human than ever. We learn of his childhood, his excitement at travelling around the world (on one spread, Sis seems to have reproduced, in miniature, every single page of Darwin's seagoing journals), his joys and sadnesses as a father, his secret scientific writing, and how close he came to fading into obscurity.