Choose Your Own Evolution: Go Extinct or Survive? You Decide!

Using a 'pick-your-own-path' format, Choose Your Own Evolution offers a really unique and engaging exploration of life on Earth. It is an incredibly engaging and accessible read! 'The Journey Begins' sets the scene, explaining that every animal has a secret history - their evolution - and that readers will be offered choices to decide their fate.

Starting as a Dickinsonia, a tiny blob, three pathways are offered to set off on the evolutionary journey. Deciding that slime is my 'style', led to becoming a 'Helcionellid' where, faced with five further choices, I selected 'Get ahead of the game' and turned to page 89. Here, I learned that I was a survivor, having become a garden snail! However, some pathways lead to extinction, the fate of Megalodon or Titanoboa, making this an interactive and engaging read, allowing readers to learn without realising!

Bursting with facts, the book is also beautifully presented, with colourful, thoughtfully placed illustrations. It is perfect for enriching the KS2 science curriculum, adding a game-like element to learning, sure to provoke discussion about the choices on offer and the outcomes they result in.

An evolutionary family tree included at the end of the book supports readers in following the stages each creature in the book has followed and a glossary offers concise definitions of the 'technical terms' related to the subject. An excellent read!

112 pages / Reviewed by Sue Wilsher, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 9+

How I wish I had owned this book when I needed to teach about evolution! It is such a clever idea to explain the process of change through an engaging, 'choose-your-own-adventure'-style text. Before scientists complain, the authors make it painstakingly obvious that animals have no conscious control over evolutionary change.

However, each page introduces a new animal and its unique story using the second person. You, the reader, are invited to think in role and then to select an evolutionary step that you hope will increase your chances of survival. Would you rather have teeth that gnaw or teeth that crunch? Do you fancy the trees or the seas? Would you prefer flight or fight? And what impact will your decisions have… Can you survive to the present day, or will you face extinction along the way?

The text is well-written with a great balance of accessible and challenging vocabulary and a glossary to explain technical words. The colour illustrations by Gordy Wright are generous and attractive and make it easy to visualise the animals, whether they are as well-known as a garden snail or as unfamiliar as a purgatorius.

Browsing through this book was both fascinating and fun. For children who prefer to read non-fiction, it would be a satisfying read-for-pleasure. For readers who lack stamina, it still makes sense, even if you just read the very short choices at the end of the page and look at the pictures. For teachers, it would make an excellent non-fiction read-aloud to support learning about evolution. All in all, a great pick for primary libraries and book corners.

112 pages / Reviewed by Louisa Farrow, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 7+

Ancestors Assemble! is the very clever hook to this brilliantly unique and absorbingly interactive exploration of the history of evolution, which takes us back to the very starting point of life on earth.

Fascinating facts across millions of years of evolution are made lively and intriguing by a 'choose your own path' format; the same way a fictional adventure story might be delivered.

First, the reader is introduced to the Dickinsonia, one of Earth's first living, hungry organisms some 570 million years ago! From there, the reader is given three tempting, curious choices, on each page, as to where and when the next evolution will occur. Choose to stay in the sea and you become a 22-legged Yicaris crustacean but, with some backbone behind your choice, you can become a Haikouichthys with a simple spine and even the beginnings of your own mouth to consume the rotting seaweed around you.

The choices you make could make you extinct ( like a giant millipede) or make you a survivor (like a colossal squid). This is such a clever, engaging and fun concept that just absorbs you as you trace your choices throughout the text.

Each creature has its own, wonderfully illustrated pages, with a wealth of facts and evolutionary background knowledge to absorb. You will learn how you unfortunately reached a dead end and become extinct or how you chose wisely and gained new skills to become a survivor. The attention to detail is amazing.

The fun and captivating facts are so wonderous. My favourite has to be becoming the Mosasaurus(Page 58) some 66 million years ago; you were the biggest lizard and ocean predator and dominated the seas. Your daughter swam at your side, eating sharks for breakfast and dragging a half dead octopus alongside you as you teach her valuable hunting skills with this dying prey as her practice target.

This is an ingenuous idea and is so visually appealing, thick with facts and imaginative with ideas to explain, explore and surmise how life, as we know it now, came through a series of twists and turns in our DNA (and a few epic natural disasters along the way).

112 pages / Reviewed by Jennifer Caddick, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 7+