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.
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