Lauren Stringer
Our Family Tree
written by Lisa Westberg Peters
published by Harcourt, 2003
ISBN 0-1520-1772-0
All of us are part of an old, old family. The roots of our family tree reach back millions of years to the beginning of life on earth. Open this family album and embark on an amazing journey. You’ll meet some of our oldest relatives--from both the land and the sea--and discover what we inherited from each of them along the many steps of our wondrous past. Complete with an illustrated timeline and glossary, here is the story of human evolution as it’s never been told before.
Awards
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•Minnesota Book Award, Nonfiction Picture Book
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•Riverbank Review Top Ten Books of Distinction
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•PEN Literary Award Finalist
Reviews
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•...Stringer’s artwork perfectly complements Peters’ tone, mixing accepted science with images that carry their own poetry...Beyond its individual merits, this offering is also a wonderful example of the evolution of children’s literature itself: it epitomizes the emergence of a branch of scrupulously researched and beautifully illustrated nonfiction picture books.
--Ruminator Review
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•...Through a simple progression amply bolstered by Stringer’s striking, large acrylics, Peters traces “our” family tree from unicellular organisms through amphibians, therapsids, and early mammals to early primates, hominids, and our distinct “humanness” today.
--School Library Journal
A Little Bit About...
How I Came to Illustrate Our Family Tree:
My illustrations evolved from nearly two years of research done mostly at my local libraries. I purposely sought out heavily illustrated books to help me imagine what the first 3 1/2 billion years of life on earth might have looked like. I was fortunate to have an open invitation from Dr. Barbara O’Connell to come and sketch in her anthropology lab at Hamline University. Hundreds of sketches, storyboards, book dummies and a 4 X 20 foot timeline that went down our second floor hallway and halfway down the stairs were all necessary to better comprehend visually the evolution of our ancestors.
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When I finally began painting the original paintings for Our Family Tree, I had memorized my research enough that it came from inside me. I felt as if I had taken walks through the Devonian swamps and across the arid landscape of Pangea. When I painted the dancing volcanoes, I knew I would be able to blend my personal vision with the scientific facts and still be accurate. I knew I had done my research well when I felt a deep connection to each of our ancestors and could picture in my mind where they lived, how they moved about, and what they ate.
A day in my studio while working on Our Family Tree...
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Listen to the author,
Lisa Westberg Peters read
Our Family Tree, with music by Matthew Smith
copyright © Lauren Stringer, 2008, all rights reserved. If you would like permission
to reproduce any part of this website, Please contact the author/illustrator