How Did I Get Here?: Your Story from the Big Bang to Your Birthday by Philip Bunting

Abstract

Reviewed by: How Did I Get Here?: Your Story from the Big Bang to Your Birthday by Philip Bunting Elizabeth Bush Bunting, Philip How Did I Get Here?: Your Story from the Big Bang to Your Birthday; written and illus. by Philip Bunting. Little, 2019 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-316-42344-1 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-316-42343-4 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs In this chatty, often lyrical introduction to, well, the entire history of the universe, Bunting starts at the beginning, "or at least what we think is the beginning," when an unimaginably dense universe was crammed into the size of an orange, here represented as a bright orange fruit afloat in a black abyss. Then "bang!" and scattered matter coalesces and organizes into suns and familiar planets and a cooling [End Page 111] Earth, and "Ta-da!" With that quote from the first putative earthly cell, life is off and running: "She had one very special trick. She could make copies of herself. … You, me, the trees, worms, whales, and wolves … we're all related to this little lady. All of life is one." Increasingly complex organisms, land animals, humans, dispersed populations, increasingly complex communities, and then: you, the viewer "made your grand entrance. And that is how you got here." Obviously there are a few steps left underreported here, but the continuity of wide-eyed, dot-pupiled life forms deftly delivers the message that every bit of matter is in this together. From here readers and listeners are free to turn this malleable title in any direction they need or wish and ponder the closing lineup of bizarre characters that demonstrate "if any little thing had changed in the time after that first really, really, really big bang … you might have turned out a little different." Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois