Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors by Joyce Sidman and Beckie Prange

Bacteria, mollusks, lichens, beetles, grasses, squirrels and humans are some of the species that Sidman praises in her poems about creatures that can be found almost everywhere on Earth. A timeline on the inside flaps starts 4.6 billion years ago. Artist Prange folded the timeline many times into itself in order to fit on two pages a scale of 1 centimetre = 1 million years. Throughout the book, each species has a poem on the left page and tidbits of scientific information on the right-hand side. I was amazed to learn that the toe pads of geckos (a 160 million-year-old family) have "thousands of microscopic hairlike projections that cling to surfaces at a molecular level." The mixed media art - linocut prints embellished with colours - work well to tie each two-page spread together. A joyful celebration of our wonderful world. All ages.

No comments: