Darwin

Charles Darwin was a collector. He didn't have a collection of things you might put on a shelf, but rather would collect dead bugs, rocks and other interesting natural specimens. When he was eight-years-old, after his mother died, he was sent to a nearby school named Shrewsbury. He wasn't interested in anything "Latin or Greek" and would rather run home and work on experiments with his brother Erasmus . . . smelly gaseous ones that earned him the nickname, "Gas." Things didn't get any better in the school department. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but he was more interested in experiments. Finally, probably in exasperation, his father sent him off to Cambridge to become a cleric. In his own writing Charles said on this topic, "To my deep mortification my father once said to me. `You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.'" Later a special letter came from Professor Henslow asking if Charles might be interested in joining an expedition to study the plants and animals along the South American coastline. In spite of the objections his father made, in 1831 Charles Darwin set sail with the HMS Beagle. This fortuitous voyage would reshape world thinking. This is a very well done book on Darwin, a seemingly resurgent topic in children's literature. The art work is vivid and includes drawings of penned letters that Charles wrote during his lifetime. The flow of the writing makes this book fun and would interest even the most reluctant of readers. "His life's work had shown that all living things, including people, are part of a natural changing world." This one just might interest your dead bug collector!