Horn Book starred review  

“ ‘Evo­lu­tion is a jour­ney, not a des­ti­na­tion.’ The paths and branch­es of human evo­lu­tion, from our pri­mate ances­tors to Homo sapi­ens, are thor­ough­ly covered…Turner is a con­sum­mate sto­ry­teller: her steady pace through mil­lions of years of the human evo­lu­tion­ary line is buoyed by an amused stance, joke-filled foot­notes, well-timed shifts into sec­ond per­son, and mod­ern-day analo­gies attuned to a mid­dle-grade audi­ence. At the same time, she is metic­u­lous in empha­siz­ing the main under­ly­ing con­cepts of evo­lu­tion­ary sci­ence: her terms are pre­cise, her rep­re­sen­ta­tions of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge clear­ly dif­fer­en­ti­ate between hypoth­e­sis and estab­lished fact, and she con­fronts mis­con­cep­tions head on (see espe­cial­ly a pow­er­ful state­ment about the unsci­en­tif­ic con­struct of race: ‘race is a cul­tur­al con­struct, not a bio­log­i­cal reality’).”

Kirkus Reviews starred review

“A prob­ing look into what fos­sil evi­dence and oth­er sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies tell us about our hominid pre­de­ces­sors … [Turn­er details] sev­en water­shed moments, begin­ning with ‘Step One: We Stand Up.’ Also cov­ered are: the emer­gence of tool­mak­ing; the devel­op­ment of larg­er and more com­plex brains; the migra­tion of Homo erec­tus out of Africa; the shift from raw to cooked foods; the evo­lu­tion of human lan­guage; and the advent of sto­ry­telling. Using a dis­arm­ing nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion style, the text clear­ly explains the sig­nif­i­cance of each anatom­i­cal or behav­ioral change and paints a fas­ci­nat­ing pic­ture of life on Earth … glints of fun light up a rock-sol­id dig into our Stone Age ancestry.”

Book­list starred review

“This fas­ci­nat­ing, invit­ing, and engag­ing­ly writ­ten vol­ume is ide­al for report-writ­ing tweens and teens and those inter­est­ed in biol­o­gy and his­to­ry.…  Every page includes some tid­bit that will be new to non­ex­pert read­ers, such as why evo­lu­tion caused peo­ple on the Indone­sian island of Flo­res to be small but Flo­res lizards to be extra large; what col­or a polar bear–grizzly bear hybrid is; how walk­ing upright helps keep us cool; what per­cent­age of humans have no Nean­derthal genes (spoil­er: it’s zero!). ..Through­out, Gurche’s sepia-toned like­ness­es of oth­er Hominids and col­or pho­tos of ancient arti­facts enliv­en the already live­ly text. Exten­sive back matter—in-depth notes, bib­li­og­ra­phy, and index—add to the val­ue. A must for sci­ence shelves.”

School Library Jour­nal starred review

“This enter­tain­ing and infor­ma­tive look at the his­to­ry of human evo­lu­tion fol­lows our hominid pre­de­ces­sors through­out his­to­ry. Chap­ters detail major mile­stones in evo­lu­tion, includ­ing how our ances­tors learned to walk, use fire, and talk to one anoth­er. The tone is fac­tu­al and con­ver­sa­tion­al, and humor­ous foot­notes will keep mid­dle grade read­ers engaged…The abil­i­ty to con­vey detailed and well-researched infor­ma­tion in a riv­et­ing nar­ra­tive style is the great­est strength of this title…VERDICT: This well-researched account of human evo­lu­tion is a first pur­chase for library collections.”