Eyewitness: Prehistoric Life

Rating:
Summary: Overview of the history of life
Review: This book is a good overview of the history of life on earth. There are a lot of great pictures in the book.

Some parents may want to be aware the book presents earth's material from an evolutionary perspective. Although I personally do not think that the scientific case for biological evolution has been definitive proven, I use this book as a supplement to our homeschool curriculum to expose my kids to the basic ideas of evolution. I want them to respect this perspective and not lampoon it. And this book is a great way to introduce kids to the foundational ideas. Parents who do hold an evolutionary perspective will probably appreciate the book for the same reason.

My only slight criticism of this book is that the book gives minimal discussion to the multiple extinction and replacement events that have happened throughout the history of the earth. This is an intriguing issue of earth's history which very few textbooks give any discussion to.

My other criticism is that the book doesn't clearly differentiate between modern humans and hominids, their differing behaviors and culture. But, again, this isn't unusual. Many science textbooks don't seem to make this differentiation either.