The Greatest Show on Earth: The 4.6 Billion Year Story of Life on our Planet

Name: William Joseph
Price range: $

by Mini Grey

Interest age: 6 to 8
Reading age: 6 to 8

Published by Puffin, 2022

Picture books

About this book

Rod the Roach and his troupe of cockroach performers (what better animals to tell the story than the insects known to be the best at surviving?) are about to perform the Greatest Show on Earth from their Shoebox Theatre in the middle of a rubbish dump – and it’s a pretty great show.

Taking us from the birth of Earth, 4.6 billion years ago, to the present day, Rod and his friends (Pierre, Cedric, Gary, Malia, Alonzo, Brunhilda and Edna – plus Anton, Anatole and Annette operating the Tape Measure of Time) dazzle us with a mix of puppetry, collage and recycled dump materials.

From the world of the microbes, where algae converted the earth’s atmosphere from carbon dioxide to oxygen, to the Age of Fish and the Rise of the Reptiles, Rod explains how Earth has evolved and changed over millennia to be able to support life as we know it today.

Mini Grey’s first nonfiction book is an absolute triumph of beauty and usefulness. Using the brilliant concept of a theatrical show situated in a shoebox theatre, Grey shows readers the timeline at the bottom of the “theatre” with fact panels on left and right sides, and the main “show” in the middle where the cockroach actors give us the main info for each period. The information is interesting and often funny, and there’s a brilliant glossary at the back of the book to clarify any tricky terms.

About the author

Mini Grey was given her name after being born in a mini in a car park in South Wales. After taking a foundation Course in Fine Art, she studied for an English degree at UCL, afterwards working as a theatre designer, then a primary teacher, before studying for an MA in sequential design at Brighton University.

Mini's first picture book for children, Egg Drop, a surreal story of an egg that dreams of being able to fly, was published in 2002. It established her as both a visually exciting illustrator of detailed, colourful artwork and a highly accomplished storyteller, who often narrates from an unusual point of view, such as that of the pea in The Pea and the Princess (2003) (shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway illustration award); the biscuit in Biscuit Bear (2004) - winner of the Nestlé Smarties Gold Prize (under 5s category) - and the spoon in The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon (2006).