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    Island: A Story of the Galápagos
    Island: A Story of the Galápagos
    Island: A Story of the Galápagos
    Ebook39 pages57 minutes

    Island: A Story of the Galápagos

    By Jason Chin

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Charles Darwin first visited the Galápagos Islands almost 200 years ago, only to discover a land filled with plants and animals that could not be found anywhere else on earth. How did they come to inhabit the island? How long will they remain?

    Thoroughly researched and filled with intricate and beautiful paintings, this extraordinary book by Award-winning author and artist Jason Chin is an epic saga of the life of an island—born of fire, rising to greatness, its decline, and finally the emergence of life on new islands. Chin's approach makes this book a must-have common core tool for teachers and librarians introducing scientific principals to young students.

    Island is one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Children's Books of 2012

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781466823877
    Author

    Jason Chin

    Jason Chin is the author and artist of the award-winning book Redwoods, which Kirkus Reviews called, “An inventive eye-opening adventure.” His work also includes illustrations for Simon Winchester's The Day the World Exploded. He and his wife Deirdre, also an artist, live in Vermont.

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    Reviews for Island

    4.5/5

    84 ratings17 reviews

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    • 5/5
      natural selection
    • 5/5
      island-life, children's, nonfiction, natural-history, nature-study, illustrated, science, zoology, eco-awareness, NYPL, volcano, Pacific Ocean, evolving, geology, maps, endemic-species, biography*****The Galapagos Islands (fifteen of them) have a rather unique history, flora and fauna. In this brilliantly illustrated introduction to the evolution of the islands and their specific inhabitants. This book is not to be missed and is also a grand teaching tool. I have the 2021 reprint in hardcover and am very pleased to have found it!
    • 5/5
      Beautiful and packed full of information without being overwhelming. On some pages, 4-panel time-lapse pictures accompany short paragraphs to illustrate concepts more completely than the words can--Chin is a master of the "picture worth a thousand words." The illustrations are realistic, as befits a Science book, but soft and lovely; evolution and geographic change in this book are a beautiful natural processes, not brutal survival of the fittest situations, even as animals do die--Chin doesn't shy away from what a small beak means for a starving finch.Overall, a beautiful book excellent for science discussions with kids. I had hoped to buy this one in the Galapagos on my honeymoon, to support a local business, but didn't find it--or any books--in my limited time among humans.
    • 4/5
      A beautifully illustrated introduction to evolution and the unique ecosystem of the Galápagos islands intended for ages 5 to 8.
    • 5/5
      Gorgeous--great introduction to evolution, geology, endemic species, and every awesome thing like that.
    • 5/5
      This historical fiction of the Galapagos Island was absolutely breathtaking. The author told the story of how a volcano started a whole new island with a unique ecosystem. I would use this book to introduce natural selection.
    • 5/5
      This is a beautiful book. The text is informative, and the book is truly a biography of the chain of islands. This book would be wonderful for my 3rd grade students, as we have just finished a unit on adaptations. Chin takes us through the life of the island, and the ways the animals adapted to grow along with it. This book is full of emotion and wonder.
    • 4/5
      Excellent illustrations. The author uses full page illustrations as well as quite small illustrations in cells that may be 2" by 2". The book describes the evolution of a single island in the Galapagos from a new volcano to a worn down little rock sticking out of the ocean. There is an epilogue about Darwin's visit and a slightly longer discussion of plate tectonics as applied to the Galapagos and evolution as imagined by Darwin in a few pages at the very end.
    • 4/5
      very beautiful story, starting 5 million years ago, about the formation of the Galapagos Islands. It explains adaptations the animals have made over time as well as how volcanos form islands and then they eventually sink. The end of the book offers more information about Darwin, his discoveries and the science behind adaptations and island formation.
    • 4/5
      Starting at an island of the Galápagos’s creation some six million years ago, Chin uses this particular island to tell the story of the entire island chain, and how it became home to so many unique plant and animal species that still exist today. Written in a traditional birth through death cycle, readers get to experience an island from its birth to its disappearance millions of years later. Additionally, how the island became populated with such unique species as it did becomes a focal point of the story. Although the topic is fascinating, the length of the book might detract some readers; however, the beautifully detailed illustrations will surely invite readers even to just glance through. Chin’s illustrations showcase the uniqueness of the species of the island, as well as the natural beauty of the island. Chin also manages to explain complex theories like evolution and natural selection without it being too overwhelming, although at times, as mentioned, the pages get extremely text-heavy. At the end of the story, there’s more information on Charles Darwin (who is never named in the story, but attentive readers will catch his presence), the Galápagos Islands in general, and also about endemic species, of which the Galápagos Islands has an extraordinary amount. Recommended. Grades 1 to 3.
    • 4/5
      A very good book, although it could be a bit confusing for early readers. It uses terms such as inheritance without explaining what inheritance is. This is a picture book for advanced readers, probably 2nd or 3rd grade and above. It could definitely be used as a read aloud for the younger kids but as teacher you had better be prepared to explain a lot of concepts that are fairly difficult. I forgot to mention, the illustrations are awesome.
    • 5/5
      A remarkable, visually stunning book in which Chin effectively chronicles six million years of natural history and explains how the islands are a microcosim for the evolutionary process. In author's note, Chin explains what in the book is science and what is the product of his imagination but he does not include a bibliography (!). Is it too much trouble to list the sources used to write the book?
    • 5/5
      This book is about the island of Galapagos and how it was created. The illustrations are beautiful and the information is correct. Visiting Galapagos is one of my dreams; that is why I chose to read this book. I would use it in my classroom (specially 5th grade) to teach about endemic species and habits. Reading Journal: counts as 1 Picture Book
    • 4/5
      Charles Darwin first visited the Galápagos Islands almost 200 years ago, only to discover a land filled with plants and animals that could not be found anywhere else on earth. The illustration on this book are amazing. They show species found in the island and how they came to live there. It is a great way to explore unknown places that children would like to know about.
    • 4/5
      Brilliant picture-book author and artist Jason Chin, whose previous works of natural history for younger children have examined such unique ecosystems as the coral reef and the redwood forest, presents a "biography" of a Galápagos island in this latest venture. Beginning with the birth of the island six million years ago, when an undersea volcano erupted, leading to its creation in the first place, the narrative follows the slow process whereby the island is colonized by both flora and fauna, and how that life evolved, in the relative isolation off the west coast of South America. The narrative concludes with the story of the island's gradual sinking back into the ocean, as newer islands take its place, while an informative afterword gives more details about the Galápagos in general, and about their role in inspiring Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.Having greatly enjoyed Chin's Redwoods and Coral Reefs, I was quite excited to discover that Island: A Story of the Galápagos was forthcoming. All in all, I'd say that is lived up to my expectations, presenting an informative narrative in a coherent and engaging fashion. There is no fantasy storytelling device here, as there was in Chin's previous two books - no boy on a subway reading about the redwoods, and then finding himself amongst them; no girl picking up a library book about coral reefs and falling into a watery world - but that's OK, the notion of a "biography" of an island, with chapters devoted to the stages of its life, was entertaining enough to do the trick. The artwork, as is to be expected from Chin, was simply marvelous, beautifully capturing the wild charm of this very special part of the world. Highly recommended to all young naturalists, to anyone looking for a simple explanation of the concept of evolution for children, and to fans of Jason Chin's gorgeous artwork.
    • 5/5
      Picture book of how an island (Galapagos) are formed. Based on the research of Charles Darwin.
    • 5/5
      Redwoods was my introduction to the wonderful Jason Chin a couple of years back, but it was a bit too fiction-y for the other Cybils panelists back then. Times have changed, though, and we readers are more open to a whisk here and there of fiction elements in our nonfiction. And (at least I think) it makes for a better world.So then Island. Let's look at Island. Chin, panel by panel, takes us through the birth, growth, and eventually disappearance of an island in the Galápagos. We see the island and its inhabitants change, over years and years, in little ways that, as time passes, become big and helpful modifications. Chin pulls his characters, all the creatures who begin to populate the island, right to the center of his drawings, posing for us, where we can look closely at all the curious developments, and slowly, reading along, we are pulled into the story of this intriguing spot in the world. Perhaps for the first time, like the first people who visited the islands, we see the inevitability of slow evolution and change in our world. Beautiful.

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    Island - Jason Chin

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