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Summary
Summary
Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species , his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles a lot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates.
Deborah Heiligman's new biography of Charles Darwin is a thought-provoking account of the man behind evolutionary theory: how his personal life affected his work and vice versa. The end result is an engaging exploration of history, science, and religion for young readers.
Charles and Emma is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature.
Author Notes
Deborah Heiligman has written more than twenty books for children. She graduated from Brown University, and started her writing career working for Scholastic News Explorer , the classroom magazine, but left when she wanted to be home with her children, and then she started writing her books. She is married to Jonathan Weiner, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for The Beak of the Finch .
Reviews (7)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This rewarding biography of Charles Darwin investigates his marriage to his cousin Emma Wedgwood. Heiligman (the Holidays Around the World series) has good reason for this unusual approach: as deeply as they loved each other, Emma believed in God, and Charles believed in reason. Embracing the paradoxes in her subjects' personalities, the author unfolds a sympathetic and illuminating account, bolstered by quotations from their personal writings as well as significant research into the historical context. We meet Charles as he weighs the pros and cons of wedded life-but then seeks his father's advice (Darwin pEre urges him to conceal his religious doubts); Emma becomes a more fervent believer after the death of her favorite (and more religious) sister. Heiligman writes for motivated readers, and her style can be discursive (mention of a letter can introduce a few sentences on the British postal system). Her book allows readers not only to understand Darwin's ideas, but to appreciate how Emma's responses tempered them. Eight pages of photos, not seen by PW. Ages 12-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Read by Rosalyn Landor. (Middle School, High School)Heiligman's biography of Charles Darwin concentrates on his relationship with his wife, Emma, and its effect on his scientific work and religious beliefs (or lack thereof). Darwin was not only a brilliant scientist but a devoted family man as well, and very much in love with Emma. Narrator Landor reads this work of nonfiction as if it were a novel, giving individual voices to all parties-an apt choice for Heiligman's personal approach. Landor's refined British accent and old-fashioned, plummy tones suit the material, while the warmth of her narration and the appeal of Heiligman's very human-centered story keep listeners close. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When the book opens, Charles Darwin is trying to make a decision, and he is doing so in time-honored fashion: drawing a line down a piece of paper and putting the pros of marriage on one side and the cons on the other. As much as Darwin is interested in wedded life, he is afraid that family life will take him away from the revolutionary work he is doing on the evolution of species. However, the pluses triumph, and he finds the perfect mate in his first-cousin Emma, who becomes his comforter, editor, mother of his 10 children and sparring partner. Although highly congenial, Charles and Emma were on opposite sides when it came to the role of God in creation. Heiligman uses the Darwin family letters and papers to craft a full-bodied look at the personal influences that shaped Charles' life as he worked mightily to shape his theories. This intersection between religion and science is where the book shines, but it is also an excellent portrait of what life was like during the Victorian era, a time when illness and death were ever present, and, in a way, a real-time example of the survival of the fittest. Occasionally hard to follow, in part because of the many characters (the family tree helps), this is well sourced and mostly fascinating, and may attract a wider audience than those interested in science. Austen fans will find a romance to like here, too. To be illustrated with photographs.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2009 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
CHARLES DARWIN was nothing if not methodical. In the summer of 1838, two years after his round-the-world journey on the Beagle, the 29-year-old naturalist drew a line down the center of a sheet of paper. Topping one column, he wrote "Marry." On the other, "Not Marry." In the middle, he wrote "This is the Question." Among the benefits of marriage: companionship, children and "charms of music & female chit-chat." The drawbacks: loss of freedom, adventure and time to pursue his scientific work (all that chit-chat). His famous conclusion? "Marry - Marry - Marry Q.E.D." Quod erat demonstrandum: Thus it is proved. It wasn't quite so simple as that, though, as Deborah Heiligman reveals in "Charles and Emma," a delightful book about the question at the heart of the Darwins' marriage. Even before he wooed and wed the charming Emma Wedgwood, Darwin suspected that his growing religious doubts, fed by scientific discoveries that seemed to disprove the biblical creation story, might dash his chances for matrimonial harmony. "He knew that these doubts and his revolutionary thoughts about transmutation" - what we know as evolution - "and the creation of species would stand in his way of finding a wife," Heiligman writes. "Most women were believers and wanted their husbands to be believers, too." The issue was especially close to the heart of his intended fiancée. Emma's beloved sister Fanny had died young, and Emma believed that leading a good Christian life would allow her to reunite with Fanny in heaven. The idea of being parted from her husband - for he, as a non-believer, would be heading south after death - might be too much for her to bear. Darwin went to his father for advice. "Conceal your doubts!" Dad said. The son, as sons are wont to do, heard Dad's advice and promptly did the opposite. In a fireside chat, he revealed all. Emma, the sharp-minded daughter of progressive, free-thinking parents, didn't see it as a deal breaker. She wouldn't insist on word-for-word biblical belief, she told Charles, just an openness to the love of Jesus. That, he could live with. Thus began an extraordinary marriage, one bound together by love, respect and a shared lifelong struggle with the question of God. One of the pleasures of "Charles and Emma" comes in watching Darwin, giant of science, grapple with the mundane challenges of marriage and day-to-day life. One day he's discovering a key to the evolution of species in the beak of a finch, the next he's buying a house and removing a dead dog from the backyard. When Charles mentions that he and a friend might wish to dine every evening at London's Athenaeum Club, his fiancée lets him know that if he plans to hit the clubs with his "excellent steady old friends" every night, he's got another think coming. Theirs was a happy marriage built on compromise. He was tidy, she was not. Charles often walked the family to church but didn't go in, preferring to stroll around the village while Emma and the children prayed. When the Darwins suffered the heartbreaking death of two children (they had 10 in total), Emma never read their suffering as punishment for her husband's lack of faith. "Animals Charles Darwin Saw" includes a giant tortoise. In today's climate of division between religion and science, it's instructive to read about a marriage in which the two cultures improved each for exposure to the other. Heiligman's most revealing insight comes near the end of the book, as Darwin, having developed his ideas in private for 20-some years, spends a feverish 13 months writing them up in "The Origin of Species." Without Emma, he might well have written a combative, antireligious treatise - "The God Delusion" of his day. Instead, his experience with his wife's tolerant, reasonable brand of faith led him to temper his tone. "Had he spent more time with free-thinking, liberal intellectuals and less time sitting on the sofa with Emma," Heiligman writes, "perhaps then he would not have been quite so conciliatory and conservative in his writing of the book." Emma acted as her husband's first reader and toughest editor. As she read the manuscript, "there were parts that made her cringe; passages that she worried would move people farther away from God," Heiligman writes. "But she only criticized the argument to help Charles spell it out more clearly." Though the church didn't exactly embrace Darwin's radical ideas, the clarity of his arguments and his evenhanded tone disarmed critics who would dismiss his book as the ranting of a heretic. Thanks to Emma, the theory of evolution would have to be challenged on evidence and logic alone. A FINAL note: To mark this year's 150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species," a raft of Darwin titles are on their way to bookstores. My two old favorites, David Quamman's "Reluctant Mr. Darwin" and Jonathan Weiner's "Beak of the Finch" (written by Deborah Heiligman's husband), are a bit beyond my 7-year-old son's reading level, but "Animals Charles Darwin Saw" is a wonderful picture-book introduction to Darwin and his dangerous ideas. Sandra Markle tells Darwin's story in clear prose spiced with interesting vignettes (like the time young Charles stored a bombardier beetle in his mouth - bad idea), and Zina Saunders brings the scenes alive with colorful woodcut illustrations. My favorite line: "Sometimes the idea of evolution still makes people angry." Kids, you don't know the half of it. Bruce Barcott is the author of "The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw."
School Library Journal Review
Starred Review. Gr 8 Up-Charles Darwin was committed to his theory that it was "evolution that drove the creation of species." He spent 20 years secretly writing in his journals, constantly refining and polishing his shocking and revolutionary ideas that transformed the world. For Darwin, his belief in natural selection, which essentially eliminated God from the picture, was constantly "percolating and demanding his attention." He praised Emma, his wife, as open-minded, unflappable, and his anchor, yet she was his religious opposite, holding firm to a belief of God as creator of all things, arguing that it was "feeling and not reasoning that drove one to prayer." Deborah Heiligman's book (Holt, 2009) is not your typical heavy-handed biography of Darwin's controversial legacy. Rather, it is a fascinating journey that features excerpts from the couple's diaries, letters, and notebooks as well as the writings of friends, relatives, and critics. It is also the story of Darwin's love of science and his love for his wife. Heiligman brilliantly explores the relationships that influenced Darwin-from his father who encouraged free thinking to his wife's strict religious pleas. Narrator Rosalyn Landor's crisp British accent and polished reading complements the author's fabulous biography. A must-have to celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday.-Cheryl Preisendorfer, Twinsburg City Schools, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
This rich, insightful portrait of Charles and Emma Darwin's marriage explores a dimension of the naturalist's life that has heretofore been largely ignored. Emma was devoutly religious while Charles's agnosticism increased as he delved deeper into his studies of natural history, but they did not let this difference come between them. While unable to agree with Charles's theory that essentially eliminated God from the process of creation, Emma remained open-minded and supportive, even reading drafts of The Origin of Species and suggesting improvements. Using excerpts from correspondence, diaries and journals, Heiligman portrays a relationship grounded in mutual respect. The narrative conveys a vivid sense of what life was like in Victorian England, particularly the high infant mortality rate that marred the Darwins' happiness and the challenges Charles faced in deciding to publish his controversial theory. While this book does not serve as an introduction to Darwin's life and ideas, readers wanting to know more will discover two brilliant thinkers whose marital dialectic will provide rich fodder for discussions of science and faith. (introduction, source notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 12 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
To marry or not to marry? This biography starts with Charles Darwin making a list of domestic pros and cons. Despite his reservations, he decided that marriage and family life were worth the risk, and so he married Emma Wedgwood, not knowing that her religious nature would call his science into question. Why It Is for Us: The Darwins' fascinating marriage of faith and reason is a very grown-up love story. Emma prays for her husband, deeply in love and yet convinced that he is putting his eternal soul at risk. For his part, Darwin finds that the bonds of matrimony he once feared would confine him instead inform his work in ways he could not have expected. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.