The Evolution of Kathryn Lasky's One Beetle Too Many
Jennifer M. Brown, Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 2/3/2009
 |
|
One Beetle Too Many (Lasky) © 2009 by Matthew Trueman |
Listen to Kathryn Lasky introduce and read from One Beetle Too Many
The work on One Beetle Too Many (Candlewick, 2009) began more than 24 years ago, according to author Kathryn Lasky. “It’s amazing that I haven’t evolved into another creature,” the author states, referring to the process of bringing her picture-book biography of Charles Darwin to fruition. In this title Lasky takes a complex theory—the theory of natural selection—and a complicated man, and makes both accessible to young readers. In many ways, the book’s seeds were planted while she was working on her very first title, Traces of Life: The Origins of Humankind (Morrow, 1989), illustrated by Whitney Powell. But the release of Beetle in 2009 was perfectly timed, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On The Origin of Species. Here Lasky discusses her career-long fascination with the naturalist.
Can you talk a bit about how this project evolved, if you’ll forgive a pun?
When my daughter was two years old, I thought, “I’ve got to get out of the house.” I live in Cambridge, right near Harvard. I hired a babysitter, and started auditing Steven Jay Gould’s course, “The History of the Earth,” and David Pilbeam’s class on human evolution. The first book I wrote was Traces of Life, about human evolution. In some ways it was easier than thinking about Charles Darwin and trying to squish his whole life into a book.
One Beetle Too Many (Lasky) © 2009 by Matthew Trueman
How did you go about condensing Darwin and his ideas into a 48-page book?
Darwin was really complicated, so I crept up on [him], and wrote a first draft maybe 20 years ago. Since then I’ve written [a number of picture-book biographies, including] The Librarian Who Measured the Earth (Joy Street, 1994), and titles on John Harrison, John Muir, and Mark Twain, so I got used to this [format], always with Darwin in the back of my mind. With Twain, I went from his birth to his early 30s—that was the most engaging time of his life, for kids and for me, too. But with Darwin, gads, it was all exciting. You do some selective splicing of time [in order to] confine an incredible life to 48 pages.
Was it difficult to decide which aspects of his theory of evolution to focus on and which would most succinctly demonstrate how natural selection works?
If you think in visual and almost metaphoric terms, Darwin’s ideas basically encompass the notion of continuing change, the pressures that can bring about that change, and the scale of time. Those are the three ideas that I kept in the forefront of my mind. I didn’t want to use the term “natural selection,” that’s sort of hard to explain. As long as I kept my focus on these principles about change, pressure, and time, then I would try to seek visual examples by reading through On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.
I felt it was important to write about when Darwin experienced that earthquake in Valdivia [Chile] because that event led to an explanation of how these incredible, abrupt changes in the earth can happen in an instant. Then that wonderful argument he had with Captain Fitzroy, who [like everyone else at that time] believed everything had always been the same, horses were horses, men were men, and dogs were dogs.
Did the humor come naturally? The third beetle that young Charles popped in his mouth for want of another hand, the lab explosions—these are all funny examples that pull in youngsters.
I’m sort of a magnet for humor, or maybe humor is a magnet for me. I have read other books on Darwin, other children’s books, too, that aren’t that humorous, and I wonder, ‘Why don’t they talk about that?’ Read some of Stephen Jay Gould’s stuff—The Panda’s Thumb (1980) and The Flamingo’s Smile (1985, both Norton)—he’s a brilliant essayist, and he uses a lot of humor.
One Beetle Too Many (Lasky) © 2009 by Matthew Trueman
Did you have any contact with the artist, Matthew Trueman? The spread of the finches, for instance, really stands out as an ideal example of Darwin’s theory, in its balance of text and illustration.
Unlike most publishers, [Candlewick] shows me every step of the process, starting with the most rudimentary sketches, but I never talked [with Trueman until after the book was published]. Matthew used a combination of collage and drawings and a lot of the material he incorporated was [tactile in nature. For example, in the original art] Darwin’s hair is sewing thread and on that notebook page [of the finches], the piece of paper with the string is real. [His art for the spread on] “Anatomy, Theology, and Botany” includes [the flora] you’d find in England.
Did it surprise you to learn that Darwin believed in God, and that he felt his theory left room for God?
It wasn’t a surprise at all, and I intuited it in everything he wrote. I think one of the most beautiful passages ever written in English is the last passage in On the Origin of Species, “There is grandeur in this view of life…”—I have it pinned up in my study. I knew he wasn’t an atheist. He couldn’t be as fascinated with life and have such a reverence for it. He just doesn’t name it [Darwin refers to “the Creator”]. Gould said that he found [Darwin’s view of life] positive and exhilarating, and that it teaches us that the meaning of our lives can’t be read passively. [Darwin suggests] that the [Creator] is not directly and continuously intervening in the evolutionary process. That’s a hard concept for some people.
|
||
Listen to Kathryn Lasky introduce and read from One Beetle Too Many
TeachingBooks.net resources on this interview »»»
Introduce your elementary students to other naturalists of note
