Charles Darwin: discover the world of Darwin through the diary of a ship's boy

Title:  Charles Darwin:  Discover the world of Darwin through the diary of a ship's boy


Author:  Alan Gibbons
Genre:  Picture Book, Historical Fiction
Reading Age:  12 - 14 years
ISBN:  978-0-7534-3223-5


Cram packed full of amazing pictures of the discoveries that Charles Darwin, the ship's naturalist, made as he travelled on The Beagle from 1832 to 1836.  The accounts are told as diary entries by a 'fictional' cabin boy but what they did and saw is true to history.


Watch out for the 'archaic' or very old-fashioned language along with the technical scientific words.  You will be checking in a dictionary to find out what a benefactor, caulked, hither and parasitic mean.  It might also be fun to follow their journeys on a map of the world.


My magical part was when the crew found an ancient tortoise on the Galapagos Islands and tried to ride on its back!  I am not sure if it was the correct thing to do but it sounded like fun!


The first half of the book are the diary entries but the second half is Non-Fiction, with lots of images of the samples Darwin collected on his journey and information about them.