16 February 2009 THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF CHARLEY DARWIN by Carolyn Meyer, Harcourt, January 2009, 272p., ISBN: 978-0-15-206194-4

"I struggled to gain my footing and held on as best I might to a leg of the chart table, which was bolted down; Midshipman King clung to another leg. His look of terror must have mirrored my own as doors and hatches burst open and water poured through in a great cataract. I was as frightened as I had ever been, certain I was on my way to a watery grave. My life seemed about to end just as my father had feared: I would be drowned, my body lost forever, my family learning of my death only months from now."

"On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they 'believe in the theory of evolution.' while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity. There is a strong relationship between education and belief in Darwin's theory, as might be expected, ranging from 21% of those with high-school educations or less to 74% of those with postgraduate degrees." -- Gallup.com

As a child, I enthusiastically collected baseball cards and Matchbox cars, and the coins that I would keep in those blue coin collection folders that many of my fellow kids from the Sixties should remember. In the summer I loved wandering along the Long Island beaches searching for pretty shells to bring home. And for many years, across the street from our house in Commack, there was a vacant lot with a long, exposed face of sand and rock where my friends and I sought out stones of all colors. We then headed home with our treasures and cracked them open with a hammer in order to observe the crystalline structures inside.

I've never lost my affinity for collecting shells and stones. During my years as an early childhood educator, when I regularly frequented the Sebastopol Flea Market on weekends in search of cheap, used toys, books and other useful items for the preschool, I would buy up any modestly-priced shell collections I ran across. I provided many a box of shells for my young students' examinations, experimentations, and art projects, but always reserved the prettiest few for myself. To this day, I keep an assortment of them on a tray atop my dresser. And after being introduced to the beauty and warm currents of the Eel River, I would always choose a large rock to lug up from the river to the car to take home as a keepsake. I keep a few of them in my bedroom, too.

"I'm curious. Is there anyone on the stage who does not believe in evolution?"

[Hands raised by Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo, and Sam Brownback]

-- Republican Presidential Debate, May 3, 2007

Given that it was the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin this week; given that I was blown away by that eye-opening hand raising when I originally watched that debate on TV; and given that I so enjoyed last year's RINGSIDE 1925, Jen Bryant's lively verse novel about the Scopes Monkey Trial; I was definitely up for reading about Charles Darwin, someone about whose life I knew next to nothing.

As it turns out, Charley Darwin was an enthusiastic collector as a child, just like I was.

Exceptionally well researched, and written as a novel in the first person, THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF CHARLEY DARWIN is a colorful story about Charles Darwin's life from young childhood until his marriage to Emma just prior to the publication of his Beagle journals. His childhood reads like you might imagine one of those Masterpiece Theater shows: British town, dead mother, firm father, bossy older sisters, boarding school, disgusting meals, nasty classmates (one with whom Charley actually had to share a bed when first away at boarding school), and no obvious clues as to a future avocation.

"Evolution is as well documented as any phenomenon in science, as strongly as the earth's revolution around the sun rather than vice versa. In this sense, we can call evolution a 'fact.' (Science does not deal in certainty, so 'fact' can only mean a proposition affirmed to such a high degree that it would be perverse to withhold one's provisional assent.)"

-- Harvard paleontologist and author Stephen Jay Gould

After being grossed out by medical school (when his father decides that Charley should follow in his footsteps), and whilest studying boring old Latin and Greek for the umpteenth time when his father decides that Charley should then become a cleric ("Whilest" is one of those cool words they threw around back when he was alive.), Charley is saved from certain death-by-perpetual-boredom by a friend's recommending that he be selected to serve as a naturalist on an around-the-world voyage of exploration.

Along the way, there is the beautiful Miss Fanny Owen who breaks Charley's heart by marrying a bad boy no sooner than The Beagle has left port, lots of vividly described brushes with death and exciting finds over the five years that they are out exploring and collecting and, upon his return to Britain, his playing with and writing about his latest collection until he has the "A-ha!" moment that will -- a century and a half later -- result in a presidential candidate dismissively stating, "If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate they are certainly welcome to do it."

I can understand how some people initially were up in arms over Darwin's writings about natural selection and "transmutation," just as they were when Galileo and DiVinci and Copernicus clued everyone in on how things really worked, but you'd think people's thinking really would have evolved by the Twenty-first century.

But this is not a book about evolution; it is the true story of a young man discovering his hidden talents. In addition, THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF CHARLEY DARWIN gave me some definite ideas about where I might and might not like to take a dream vacation. It provides a kid-friendly, down-to-earth view of Britain and of world civilization and exploration on the front end of the Industrial Revolution. And it shows us how collecting is far more important, educational, and rewarding than some might otherwise think.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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