In “Reaping the Rewards,” we take a look at a crowdfunded project in its final form. Today’s project is Grandmother Fish, the first book to teach evolution to preschoolers.
When I first read about Grandmother Fish here on GeekDad, I immediately backed the campaign. As science-minded thinkers, I knew as soon as I saw the campaign that I wanted to read this book to my son as soon as possible.
A year later and not only have we received our beautiful hard copy of Grandmother Fish, but it’s also now available on Amazon for those who missed the Kickstarter. We are going to be gifting several copies of Grandmother Fish to the other kids in our life because it is that great of a book.
Grandmother Fish is written by Jonathan Tweet and charmingly illustrated by Karen Lewis. The majority of the book is a simple lineage from Grandmother Fish to Grandmother Reptile to Grandmother Mammal to Grandmother Ape to Grandmother Human, each step on the evolutionary ladder building on the one before it adding traits (like crawling and chomping and cuddling) while also branching off to Cousins like Cousin Shark, Cousin Bird, and Cousin Gibbon. Each trait is easy for children of all ages to mimic, which makes the book a lot of interactive fun even at a very young age.
My son absolutely adores this book and likes not only acting out all the traits but naming all of the cousins and finding the grandmothers on every page. But the story isn’t even the end of the book. Once the story is done, there are several reference pages for parents (or older kids) to further help with evolution study–a larger family tree, detailed explanations of the concepts of evolution, more in-depth analysis of the aforementioned traits, and a myths about evolution section.
Grandmother Fish is not only a great, fun read but an invaluable educational tool. Grandmother Fish should not only be in every home, but in every classroom. If you agree that evolution is a true fact and want to start that knowledge with the little ones in your life (or maybe even to try to convince some of those relatives we all have that talk about how it’s “just a theory”), head over to Amazon and grab a copy!
Thanks for backing my book and for the kind words. Karen’s art made it better than I could have hoped.
Thank you, Jonathan! We’ve read it almost every night since it arrived (except for the couple of nights it was in my office for writing the review).