When the Whales Walked

BY DOUGAL DIXON, WORDS & PICTURES, £12.99

Since evolution has become a popular primary school topic in the UK, a fleet of books on the subject has hit the shelves. Most opt for the all-too-familiar tale of the intrepid Darwin aboard the HMS Beagle and finches in the Galápagos, or the peppered moths that would follow. Here, Dougal Dixon and illustrator Hannah Bailey opt for something else, offering 13 stories about the early experimentation of animal forms in a bid to help younger readers understand how we got here. Besides the eponymous whale, there are chapters on early dinosaur flight and warm-blooded crocodiles, alongside more familiar stories of snakes with legs and fish with feet. Delivered with playfulness, colour and charm, Dixon’s aim is clearly to ‘show and don’t tell’, drawing readers in with wonder, rather than dry evolutionary exposition. The book achieves this with great success.