Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas - Hardcover

Ottaviani, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1596438657 ISBN 13: 9781596438651

Publisher: First Second, 2013

Synopsis

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Jim Ottaviani returns with an action-packed account of the three greatest primatologists of the last century: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. These three ground-breaking researchers were all students of the great Louis Leakey, and each made profound contributions to primatology―and to our own understanding of ourselves.
Tackling Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas in turn, and covering the highlights of their respective careers, Primates is an accessible, entertaining, and informative look at the field of primatology and at the lives of three of the most remarkable women scientists of the twentieth century. Thanks to the charming and inviting illustrations by Maris Wicks, this is a nonfiction graphic novel with broad appeal.

About this title

About the Authors

Jim Ottaviani has written fifteen (and counting) graphic novels about scientists. His books include Naturalist (with E.O. Wilson), Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier, Hawking, The Imitation Game, a biography of Alan Turing, Primates, about Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas; and Feynman, about the Nobel-prize winning physicist, artist, and raconteur. His books are New York Times bestsellers, have been translated into a dozen languages, and have received praise from publications ranging from Nature and Physics World to Entertainment Weekly and Variety.

Jim lives in Michigan and comes to comics via careers in nuclear engineering and librarianship.

Maris Wicks lives in sunny Somerville, Massachusetts. She is the author behind Human Body Theater, as well as the illustrator of New York Times bestselling Primates, with Jim Ottaviani. Wicks has also created comics for Spongebob Comics, DC and Marvel. When Maris is not drawing comics, she can be found prepping slides for her collection of vintage microscopes.

Reviews

Ottaviani’s latest, after Feynman (2011), manages to compress the fascinating stories of three groundbreaking scientists—Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas—into a slim volume without skimping on their rich characters and joyful discoveries. Thanks to Wicks’ colorful, lively, Hergé-like art, each scientist (and primate) has a distinct personality, but it’s the depictions of the animals—emerging from lush, leafy backgrounds or lolling in trees—that steal the show. A chimp mugs to the viewer with a boastful, precocious grin, for instance, after Goodall observes it using a tool to forage for food. For all the playful mugging and gratifying discoveries, though, Ottaviani doesn’t shy away from the struggles of living and working in the bush. Presented as dedicated, iconoclastic, and profoundly in awe of the creatures around them, Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas are inspiring figures, and Ottaviani does a first-rate job of dangling enough tantalizing tidbits to pique readers’ interest in the topic. The actual science is a bit light, but an author’s note strongly encourages further reading and includes resources. Grades 9-12. --Sarah Hunter

Edition details

• Publisher: First Second
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1596438657
• ISBN 13: 9781596438651
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Wicks Maris
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144