Another installment of my son’s exhibits outside my office. Timely as ever we just finished this one up before the building closes for Christmas break. And as the HMS Beagle set sail with Darwin aboard on December 27, (1831), it’s worth sharing now.

I could absolutely have waited until December 27 to post this or scheduled it to do so, but we are about to go into Christmas Break with two kids and if there is any guarantee of the next fortnight it is that nothing will be done when it is supposed to.

My son’s interest in Darwin started not because my degree is in the history of science or that we even collect everything he possible can stuff into his room, but because a few children’s books we’ve picked up along the way.

It’s noteworthy that almost every single picture book for kids is about Darwin’s voyage of the Beagle and leaves the outcome to things that happened later. I will say, having met Darwin first as a geologist, it’s been rather refreshing spending more time with the young Darwin. To wit, Charles Darwin, Geologist by Sandra Herbert is a brilliant book and one of my favorites about him.

The one that really ignited his wanting to know everything about Darwin though was the Who Was Charles Darwin? book from the popular “Who Was” line of nonfiction children’s biographies–you may know them as the books with the big heads on the front.

After that I snatched up as many books as I could find and it’s been interesting to read them for what they have included and what they’ve left out. It was also fortuitous that a university friend from my undergraduate days in anthropology took a recent trip to the Galapagos and generously shared his photos and some videos with my son.

The following week he said, “some of my friends at school are going to Disney for Fall Break, I’d rather go to the Galapagos Islands.” I haven’t done the math yet, but I am certain it would be cheaper.

I also got him a small scale model of the Beagle which, until we put it in a case at work, lived on the headboard of his bed–between the original Kenner Ecto-1 toy and an Inspector Gadget lamp I made him from an old vinyl bank.

I do recommend picking up any of the books you see here to gift to your kids or to your friends’ kids. They are a lot of fun and some of the art is wonderful.

Yes, that is Ms. Frizzle having tea with Darwin. This is from the art inside the Explore Human Evolution book that was published in 2020. It was the last one the Joanna Cole wrote as she passed away before this one was published. The famed illustrator Bruce Degen passed away in 2024. What’s doubly funny about this is that in 2011 I chaired a session at the joint ACA/PCA conference in San Antonio where I read a piece of short fiction called “Charles Darwin has Tea with God.” At the time I wasn’t imagining Ms. Frizzle, but you know what, why not?

I even stumbled across a book that I hadn’t heard about before which I will eventually get around to reading. Evolution’s Captain sounds fascinating.

We also included s few bits of popular culture as Darwin was a rather important character in Gideon Defoe’s Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientist and the later Aardman stop-motion film which is fantastic. And if you haven’t read Defoe’s book (or any other in the series, do yourself a favor they are laugh out loud funny, and I’ll never stop recommending a book which includes the line “stop throwing trilobites at me!”).

All in all this was another fun one to put together and I still enjoy seeing how my son’s interests grow as well as how his design sense evolves (heh, heh) as it was his idea to collect all the books that looked more like journals in one case and all the other “more picturey” books in the other.

We’ve also spent more than enough time listening to the Natural Selection Horrible Histories song and watching the video:

To quote Beakman as Darwin when he visited Beakman’s World, “well you DarWIN some and you DarLOSE some.”

I am going to end with this absolutely stunning copy of On the Origin of Species from the Folio Society. It’s been languishing in its slipcase for years in my library and it’s nice to have it out on display where it should be.

And to all my readers (both of you) I wish you all a quiet and restful end to 2025 and a 2026 filled with creativity, productivity, and plenty of non-interesting times.