Evelyn the Adventurous Entomologist: The True Story of a World-Traveling Bug Hunter

by Christine Evans, Yasmin Imamura (Illustrator)

Overview

Back in 1881, when Evelyn Cheesman was born, English girls were expected to be clean and dressed in frilly dresses. But Evelyn crawled in dirt and collected glow worms in jars. When girls grew up they were expected to marry and look after children. But Evelyn took charge of the London Zoo insect house, filling it with crawling and fluttering specimens and breathing life back into the dusty exhibits. In the early 1920s, women were expected to stay home, but Evelyn embarked on eight solo expeditions to distant islands. She collected over 70,000 insect specimens, discovered new species, had tangles with sticky spider webs, and tumbled from a cliff. Inspire children to believe in their dreams and blaze their own trail with the story of Evelyn's amazing life!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943147663
Publisher:	The Innovation Press
Publication date:	09/24/2019
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.80(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	730L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 10 Years

About the Author

Christine Evans is a British author living in California with her husband and daughters. Her work has been featured in Highlights and High Five magazines. Evelyn the Adventurous Entomologist is Evans' first picture book.

Yasmin Imamura has illustrated and designed products for Anthropologie, Papyrus, Sanrio, and more. Her greeting card company, Quill & Fox, includes an in-studio shop of her hand-painted cards that are sold worldwide. Imamura grew up in Manila, Philippines and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Find more of her work at YasImamura.com.

Editorial Reviews

"Throughout the clearly written text, Evans emphasizes Cheesman’s lifelong response to society’s warnings against everything from girls going on bug hunts to women exploring alone: she would go anyway. The attractive illustrations work closely with the narrative, highlighting exciting moments and underscoring important points." — Booklist

"A lively introduction to Cheesman and her scientific career." — Booklist

From the Publisher

09/01/2019

Gr 1–2—Lucy Evelyn Cheesman, who went by her middle name, studied to be a canine nurse and later became the first woman curator of the London Zoo's insect house. Evelyn traveled across the globe to study and gather specimens of insects; this was her passion. During her lifetime she collected more than 70,000 specimens for London's Natural History Museum. She wrote stories about her adventures and published 16 books. Evelyn died in 1969 at the age of 88. Illustrations dominate the pages, and text is limited to a few sentences per page. An interview with Dr. Alexandra Harmon-Threatt, a contemporary entomologist, completes the book along with a bibliography and a one-page biography of Evelyn. This volume highlights key points of Evelyn's life, and she is always portrayed as a wide-eyed, jaunty, inquisitive person who never let societal norms keep her down. The book's tag line emphasizes the fact that "she went anyway." This is a great mantra for readers of this work. VERDICT A valued addition for all STEM collections and one that may especially inspire young women facing similar adversity. —Patricia Ann Owens, formerly at Illinois Eastern Community College, Mt. Carmel

School Library Journal

2019-06-25
A picture-book biography of Englishwoman Evelyn Cheesman emphasizes her perseverance in a man's world during a particularly male-oriented era.

The first verso shows three light-skinned girls in pinafores, their activities demonstrating that girls in the 1880s were expected to be "quiet, clean, and covered with lace." As with all the art, color and composition are appealing, but the humans are bland and one-dimensional. The text goes on to say that girls were certainly banned from "bug hunts." On the facing page, a soiled little girl kneels in a forest glade, dragonfly on forefinger. The text reads, "But Evelyn went anyway." That mantra is repeated when, years later, she becomes the first woman to run the London Zoo's insect house; the third time involves world travel as an insect-collecting woman. Its fourth repetition unabashedly introduces the uncomfortable fact of colonialism. On the Pacific island of Nuku Hiva, the white woman stands in her standard outfit of crisp white shirt and safari hat, facing "villagers"—five brown-skinned people with grass skirts and spears—who tell her not to climb a steep cliff. "But Evelyn went anyway." She is eventually recognized by Queen Elizabeth II for, among other things, "discover[ing] new species" in other populated parts of the empire. Perhaps it is by way of apology that further notes on Cheesman appear after an interview with contemporary female entomologist Alexandra Harmon-Threatt, who is African American.

Too glib for comfort. (endnotes, bibliography.) (Biography. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews