Chapter One

I liked chapter one of this book because Shubin's writing is simplistic and he gives pictures. At the same time, he tells his story of how he co-discovered Titaalik in the Arctic. Also, this book seemed very interesting and it taught me a lot. The pictures help show exactly what Shubin is trying to say. For example on page 9, the picture that says "Pattern at the zoo" on the top left helps show Shubin's explanation on how animals at the zoo could be classified. When I go to a zoo, I never think about classifying animals when I'm over there, I just look at the animals. I knew animals could be classified, but what I did not know was that classifying these animals could give an idea of how fossils are laid out in rocks. If you look at the right side of the picture, the more developed creatures are at the top and the simple creatures are at the bottom. Just by classifying animals at the zoo, a person can get an idea of how old that creature must be. That's amazing! I also found it interesting that we evolved from fish because humans and fish just do not look alike at all and also fish live in water and humans are on land. At first, I was like "NO WAY!" but then when I got to the part about Shubin discovering Tiktaalik and also when I looked at the picture on page 26 (the one with the fish on top and the dog and human on the bottom) I started to accept that I had an inner fish. I know this book is not going to be boring because I looked ahead and there are still pictures throughout the book. That's all I really have to say about chapter 1. I look forward to reading the rest of this book throughout the summer.

-Nirav Patel