I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book because nonfiction is important. This had great pictures and was a great idea, but it seemed to miss a lot of important things in history. It started out well but didn't flesh out as well as it could have.

This book provides a very concise and clear overview of what happened after our planet and it’s moon we’re created. It details life in the oceans, great migrations across continents, the dinosaur extinction, the first humans, and the exploration and construction of original dwellings and infrastructure for human settlement. It emphasizes the interconnectedness of our world, which I really enjoyed.

I'm conflicted with this book. The text is very simplified, understandable I suppose given it's geared toward young children, but still....it explains evolution without ever using the word "evolution." Why? It seems odd. It does at least open a conversation on the topics covered. The star of this book is the artwork. The illustrations are beautiful, and it's worth buying the book for the art alone! 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

There is a word missing throughout this entire book: evolution. Floor Bal talks about animals changing, time passing and new species being created on about half of the pages of this children's non-fiction book; and yet they don't use the word evolution or evolve even once! How can you write a book about the big bang and the evolution of the Earth without saying evolution?

Overall the best thing in It Started with a Big Bang is the artwork. The actual descriptions of the big bang is fairly poor. No mention of matter or elements at all. Instead the book vaguely tells the reader that nothing became something. For me that is an unsatisfactory response. It sounds like made-up magic frankly. I can imagine any child being thirsty for more details and not quite understanding how a bang happens out of nothing. I realize this is a difficult and complex subject to teach children but there has got to be a better way of going about it than Bal gives us.

Finally if you wan to claim a book has the origin of the reader in it then I don't know how you can skip over reproduction. Instead of just saying that animals come from other animals why not be more specific. The average child knows that babies come from female humans so why wouldn't you say so? I also don't understand how you can say that the book talks about the origin of 'you' and not show a human child near the end. There should have been a page with children of all race, ethnicity, religion, etc. that is the 'you' page for the child reading.
Unfortunately this is a very disappointing book.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

I thought I would love this book, I wanted to love this book! It was just too much oversimplified information, possibly leaving some kids with a lot more questions than answers. I do think the illustrations are beautiful.

I had a hard time deciding whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars. I ultimately went with 4 because of the quality of the artwork, which is really rich and engaging.

This book really attempts a lot for a children's picture book. In places, it does well. In other places, it falls short. Kids will read about how the universe started with nothing at all but a dot that then exploded into the universe. It then goes into how the earth formed, how the earliest life developed, how the asteroid destroyed all the dinosaurs and most life on earth, how humans developed from apes, and how we seemingly overnight became modern marvels of sophisticated technology.

There are a whole lot of times when the book gives the scientific equivalent of "and then a miracle occurred." Many things are not explained and many developments seem to come from nowhere. Of course, most of these things are beyond the scope of a children's book. Still, if you promise to explain "the origin of earth, you and everything else," people are going to be expecting as much.

This is a good intro book about evolution and the big bang. I would recommend it along with a good pile of others to round out the lesson.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This is a great astronomy themed picture book for those young kids who crave information. The pictures lend themselves to the information.

Nice science book for kids, pretty simple so better imo for younger children (or maybe with middle age kids to start conversation?). The artwork was great as well.

Thank you Kids Can Press and Netgalley for an ARC in return of my honest review.

This book packs in a lots of knowledge for kids around the 6 - 9 age group. It covers the Big Bang, dinosaurs, evolution and lots more, in small amounts of detail , perfect as a jumping board of your child is interested in learning more from that point.

The set out of the book was very appealing, I loved the swirling typeface used for the words, and the pictures were colourful and wonderfully matched.

I feel like <em>It Started with a Big Bang</em> by Floor Bal bit off a little more than it could chew with its goals here. And I suppose, in a way, my expectation that this would focus more on space was a bit unrealistic considering the fact that literally beneath the title is a comment that the book features the origin of Earth and "you." The everything else bit is kind of true and kind of not.

While <em>It Started with a Big Bang</em> definitely offers a plethora of information for readers to learn, it also skips over a lot and jumps around more than it probably should. I almost feel as though this would have been better as a series of books that began with the big bang and the formation of space then slowly moved into the development and evolution of everything else with future books.

That is not to say, of course, that there weren't a lot of amazing bits of knowledge included in this book. There's definitely a lot to learn here and I can definitely see a lot of kids benefiting from reading it. I personally would have appreciated it to be somewhat more in-depth about space and focused there, but it's alright that it wasn't. The fact that this book exists is still good. And hopefully, it will spark interest in topics like the big bang and evolution in those who read it.

<em>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</em>

Blog link to go live on 08/28/19.

A primer for over fourteen billion years' history is always going to struggle, but this does pretty well. It looks very good, for a start, as it conveys the Big Bang, planetary formation, evolution through to dinosaurs and beyond, and ends with the modern age, but it still manages to miss things out – the sun is just suddenly there, not all eon-wide jumps in time even get mentioned, and so on. The text is most suitable – giving us easy information ideal for the under-tens, and never forcing one of the many concepts here down anyone's throat. So while it's not perfect, it certainly does have a supreme design and would win on a school library shelf. Four stars.

Thanks so much Netgalley for book given to me in return for a review. I'd have to say that this was very colorful and very educational book. My son and I loved it!

This was simple, but maybe overly simplified to the point of blurring the line of truth. I was glad to see Thea included, as it was just something that I learned about as an adult while teaching my child. I think it covered too much time in too few pages, so I wish it had stuck to the Big Bang and early organisms OR had more pages and been a more comprehensive guide.

I can easily incorporate this book with music curriculum when i discuss the science of sound for my older students as well as songs about the moon, the earth, dinosaurs, the solar system. We can also write poems that can be turned into simple melodies, or base a concert that includes passages of the book with musical interludes related to the pages. Many possibilities! Kudos to the author for simplifying the origin of Earth.

I love this! It's a great basic primer for kids on how everything happened from the Big Bang to space exploration. I would love to read this one with my daughter. I love the artwork as well as the words.

One medium-sized quibble: Saying "eating cooked meat and thinking hard to create tools makes their brains grow bigger" is not quite accurate, right? The evolution of cognition is pretty complex and while I understand not getting into it in a children's book, I think this is misleading, not just higher-level.

Very small, not-at-all-important quibbles: the word "starfish." They're not fish! Go with the accurate "sea stars!" Also, I mean, "a dinosaur's toe is as big as a turtle!" There are lots of turtles! Some are very small! Which turtle?

Wow! I can hardly wait to read this book with my children! I can already see the awe in their faces and the innumerous questions they will ask about everything in this book. In Montessori, the 6-9 years old curriculum starts with the five Great Stories. The Big Bang is the first of them. We'll have this book on the shelf while telling the story! It covers the Beginning and then some.
On a side note, I should mention it follows the evolutionist approach.
The illustrations are breathtaking!
A book worth buying for your children!
Thank you to Net Galley for providing me with an e-book copy in exchange for my honest review!

At first, I thought this was pretty good. But as it went on, and started to skip over more and more with huge time jumps, I started to get confused. This isn't really a story of the Big Bang; it's a story of how humans came to be, and as such, the focus is all fairly local.

The first issue I had was on around the fifth page, after the Big Bang when the universe starts to "fill up". There's no explanation of how that happens. Stuff just suddenly exists. And then on the next page, the book talks about our sun, but simply refers to it as "the sun", as if it's the only one in existence. Only Earth's formation is covered; you wouldn't know there are other planets in our solar system.

Things just get worse from there. While evolution is explained, there are huge time jumps involved. We go from sea creatures venturing onto land for the first time to dinosaurs everywhere a page later. After the extinction event, the book does mention that millions of years later the apes (our ancestors) showed up. As I said before, this is really a book about us, not the Big Bang or even the evolution of Earth. What happened in those millions of years? No idea. The book doesn't tell us.

The apes eventually become humans because they eat cooked meat and use tools (which is kind of a weak explanation; crows pull half-eaten hamburgers out of trash cans and use tools, but they're not winning any Nobel Prizes). The humans make art, and then they become civilized. Everything they do is painted in a positive light, and while talking about the mess we've made of the planet may be beyond the scope of this book, I'm disappointed that our impact on the planet (especially in the last hundred years or so) isn't even mentioned.

The pictures are fine in some places, but I don't know how accurate they all are. When I see an astronaut tethered to a satellite that looks like Sputnik, I have to question the accuracy of the rest of the illustrations.

This is just okay. You can probably get almost as much factual information from the theme song of The Big Bang Theory, though. At least that has a catchy tune.

*thank you to Netgalley, Kids Can Press and the author for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

3 stars.

This book left me unsure of what to make of it. While I can see that the author went to alot of work to get all of the information together, it left me with more questions than answers. This is my first time really taking notice of The Big Bang Theory and in a way that's probably a good thing because this book is ment to be a child's first book about this topic, or one of their first introductions. I also tried to see it from a child's point of view and while it was still good, it was a bit hard to follow. You have to really think about what's been said. If you are a very bright kid this would be fine, but I donno. It wouldn't have been one I'd like to read or have read to me, over and over. I'll pass on this book, but that doesn't mean others won't enjoy it. It's just not for me.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Having a hard time really saying what was a let down. The Illustrations were ok, not great, but not fantastic either. The story came across that way too. Even though there was great information for kids, it fell flat somehow. I do not think this will help convert any nonbelievers in the big bang theory.

It Started with a Big Bang by Floor Bal is a children's picture book that introduces readers to the history of the universe, starting with the big bang, up until life on earth now. Bal uses accessible and informative terms to explain something that can feel quite confusing to explain.

The illustrations are beautifully done and complement the text in such a powerful way. Bal shares all of this complex information in a reachable manner for readers, young and old. I read this book with our 9-year-old son, who has talked a lot about this theory at school, and we had the most thought-provoking conversation after reading this. It is so powerful to read this as an adult and then get the perspective of a child.

No matter your age, it is utterly fascinating to think we are all here because of this. Dal successfully shared some of the most complex ideas into a readable and approachable picture book that I know will become one of our favorites on our family bookshelf.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kids Can Press for an advanced copy of this book.