Galapagos George by Jean Craighead George
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is another example of the growing trend of using biographical style to treat the story of a remarkable individual animal. Jean George shared her own surname with Lonesome George, the tortoise the story is about. So she used this name to trace the tortoise's ancestors back eons into evolutionary time. It was a good technique, and a simple way to present some scientific facts about the tortoises.
At first I was bothered by the near duplication of Jason Chin's cover from [b:Island: A Story of the Galápagos|13170025|Island A Story of the Galápagos|Jason Chin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1340899771s/13170025.jpg|18349340]. But the interior was different enough that it did not feel like a simple ripoff. While the narrative held things together, it was not particularly compelling or engaging. The back matter has plenty of reference information both about the book itself and to guide me out to other sources. In particular, George mentions the Charles Darwin Research Station and near the end features working scientists--good move!
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