My class mates and I grew up enduring this kind of torture in the form of geography textbooks. They were dense, grey and boring and crammed with facts that seemed completely useless to us – the principal export crop of Bolivia, for example, or the exact length of the Nile river.
No-one told us about geology or astronomy; the ‘big bang’, the Vendian period, the K-T boundary, or the famous fossilized jellyfish found in the Edicara Hills. And certainly, nobody cared whether the books we were forced to read excited us to learn more about the planet we inhabited.
Thankfully, with Voyages Through Time, author Peter Ackroyd and publishers Dorling Kindersley have ensured that no learner should ever have to suffer dull books again. Ackroyd combines a wonderful enthusiasm for storytelling with rigorous research. Although the book is aimed at younger readers, Ackroyd never patronises his audience. Neither, however, does he shy away from technical terms or descriptions of complex ideas or profound events. Quite simply, he tells it like it is. His straightforward style will be appreciated by all readers, young and old.
Dorling Kindersley on its part has complemented the text with beautiful, full-colour images that will win over any reader.
First, Ackroyd invites the reader to explore the origin and evolution of the universe and how stars, galaxies and solar systems come to be formed. He considers the evidence that scientists have found to answer questions like ‘How old is the universe?” ‘What are the life cycles of stars?” and ‘What are the sources of the elements that make our bodies?”
Next, he investigates the birth of Earth and its tectonics, shifting surface features and atmospheric cycles. He explores the causes of ancient earthquakes and volcanoes, how oceans and atmospheres formed, and what finally made Earth a habitable planet.
Ackroyd then moves on to consider the fundamental characteristics and chemistry of living things; from single-celled organisms to the beginning of multi-cellular life, explaining along the way how scientists have gathered fossil evidence and living organisms to try to understand the origins of life.
The mechanisms and processes that change life over time and have created such wondrous diversity of life on Earth today come under the spotlight next. He examines how variations occur within populations, how massive extinction events have marked the demise of creatures we will never know, and the complex relationships that define species.
The end of The Beginning is the story of Hominid Evolution – how early hominids became bipedal; developed larger skulls and brains; migrated, developed technology such as tools, language, and agriculture, and steadily colonised the planet.
Excellence was clearly the driving force in producing this near-flawless resource. Consistently informative sidebars and captions are succinct yet expand upon a point made in the main text. Reference pages with extensive and clear time lines follow the body of the text, and a comprehensive glossary and index are to hand. While it didn’t bother me, some may consider the absence of source notes or a bibliography an unfortunate omission.
Ackroyd has said that his sense of curiosity remained piqued during the research for and writing of The Beginning, and it’s clear that he wants to get readers doing investigative work as well. He urges them to consider scientific evidence as they explore the wealth of information here. Discussions involving speculation are clearly noted throughout the book, and Ackroyd often offers alternate theories after stating the most accepted scientific belief.
But scientific investigation cannot detract from the inherent mystery and wonder of this tale. Ackroyd’s central purpose in this book is to posit the biggest whodunit of all: ‘How and why does the physical and biological world change over time?”
And it’s this question that I hope will ultimately captivate younger readers. I hope they’ll be awed by how long our world has been in the making, and by the majestic names of bygone aeons, Hadean, Archaean, Proterozoic and Phanerozoic. I hope they’ll ponder the concept of geological time when they learn that during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, which lasted for some 106-million years, there were no bright colours because there were no flowers, and that there were, as yet, no animal calls or cries in the great prehistoric forests; that the first forms of life emerged miraculously on our planet some 4 560 million years ago and that ape-like creatures – our ancestors – only emerged some 5- to 1.8-million years ago; only yesterday in evolutionary terms, but in fact, at the beginning of the world’s old age.
I hope they’ll realise, too, that we need time to answer the million questions that still remain about our planet’s past, but that this opportunity will fade away if we continue to cause the mass
extinction of species after species.
As educators, we need to teach our learners that we need the past to learn how best to approach the future. This book is a great place to start. As Ackroyd puts it, ‘It’s just a book, but if you can help just one child learn, or be interested in reading, then it’s worth it.”