Sís's latest biography delves into life of Darwin

By Stephanie Dunnewind
Seattle Times staff reporter

	PETER SíS Author and artist Peter Sís said illustrating the latter part of Darwin’s life for the biography “The Tree of Life” was a challenge. Above are two of his illustrations.
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"Whether it's a little girl walking around the block ("Madlenka," 2000, and "Madlenka's Dog," 2002) or Darwin sailing around the globe ("The Tree of Life," 2003), when I look at my books all together, the idea, in a way, is the world," said Sís from his New York City studio.

His "Tibet Through the Red Box," a 1998 autobiographical tale about stories his father told him as a child, will be adapted for the stage by the Seattle Children's Theatre in January.

Author appearance Peter Sís will read and sign copies of his new book, "The Tree of Life: A Book Depicting the Life of Charles Darwin: Naturalist, Geologist & Thinker" (Frances Foster Books, $18), at the following bookstores. • 10 a.m. Wednesday, Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., Seattle (206-624-6600). • 7 p.m. Wednesday, Secret Garden Bookshop, 2214 N.W. Market, Seattle (206-789-5006). • 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., Lake Forest Park (206-366-3333). • 4 p.m. Thursday, University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle (206-545-4363). • 7 p.m. Thursday, All for Kids, 2900 N.E. Blakeley St., Seattle (206-526-2768).

"We see on the TV and the media that we're all becoming one, that there's nothing left to discover," Sís said. "I still hope there are lots of things to discover, just maybe on a different level. I refuse the idea that we know everything."

With his newest biography of Charles Darwin, "The Tree of Life," the acclaimed author/illustrator found new information constantly surfacing about his subject, despite the 121 years since the naturalist's death. (Not all of it accurate: A TV documentary on Darwin convinced him to draw his subject as left-handed, until it turned out the only lefty was the actor portraying Darwin.)

Sís, whose biography of Galileo, "Starry Messenger," was a Caldecott Honor Book and an American Library Association Notable Book, also wrote about Columbus in "Follow the Dream" (in part to celebrate his pride in becoming an American citizen). The books weren't a planned sequence of his heroes, but clearly all shared the same quality of challenging the conventions and assumptions of their times.

Before starting his extensive research, Sís knew only a little about his subject from school reading. But he remembered Darwin's quote: "I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men."

That was not the case for Sís while growing up behind the Iron Curtain in the 1950s, "the coldest time of the Cold War."

"My whole young life, we all had to blindly follow what we were told," he said. Even now, as his children, ages 9 and 11, are raised in the United States, "pop culture and peer pressure tell kids they must collect thousands of Pokémon cards. It's amazing how hard it is to be an independent thinker, to march to the beat of your own drummer."

Darwin disappointed his father, who wanted him to become a doctor (Sís gleefully describes how the senior Darwin bemoaned that all his son cared about was shooting, horseback riding and rat catching — "which all came in handy on the Beagle"). Instead, Darwin headed off on a five-year sailing journey aboard the HMS Beagle, including a fateful stop in the Galápagos Islands. But contrary to what Sís had hoped to draw, Darwin's epiphany didn't occur on the islands, but rather seven years later after he'd long been home.

Indeed, after Darwin's busy five years abroad, "the rest of his life was spent sitting and thinking, which is hard to illustrate," Sís noted. He supplies some drama by dividing Darwin's later life into three components: the public (his fame from books about the Beagle voyage), private (his sorrow at the deaths of two of his young children) and secret (his theories about evolution and the adaptation of species).

"I admire him because he had facts he could have kept quiet, but he opted to publish (them), whatever the consequences," Sís said. In a four-page fold-out spread, Sís explains and illustrates Darwin's theory of natural selection. (Darwin did not invent the concept of evolution, but he contributed the research-based theory on how it occurred.)

Noting that many history teachers focus too much on names and dates, Sís included small details to help children identify with his subject, such as an journal entry where the perpetually seasick Darwin notes, "I loathe, I abhor the sea and all ships which sail on it." In another snapshot, Darwin eats a rare bird and then only belatedly saves key body parts and feathers as a scientific specimen (the bird is later named for him — Rhea Darwinii.)

The fact that Darwin's most significant work took place in his own home supports Sís' contention that the world, while shrinking through the Internet, e-mail and regular airline service, is still more expansive than many can imagine. He was moved at a literary reading by former Czech president Václav Havel, who was jailed nearly five years. "Even people locked in prison can still explore the world, even if they don't even move an inch."

Stephanie Dunnewind: sdunnewind@seattletimes.com

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