Life (as We Know It)

We think this much is true . . . Once upon a time, before time even existed, all matter in the universe was concentrated on a single point a fraction of the size of an atom. And then? And then it exploded.

This sumptuous and poetic celebration of Earth’s origin story tells the remarkable tale of life from its first iteration as a single cell through the planet’s various phases of evolution and extinction to the strange, uncertain place we find ourselves in today. Factual in its content, but lyrical in its expression, Life (As We Know It) captures the unlikely magic and strange beauty that is at the heart of life on Earth and acknowledges how little we really understand about how we ended up here. We tell our children stories of apples and snakes, of gods and monsters. But the creation story told by science is more perplexing and incredible than any we could ever make up.

Ziggy Hanaor is a writer and publisher living in London. She is author of the V&A award-winning Alte Zachen (Cicada, 2022) and the Carnegie-nominated The Egg Incident (Cicada, 2024), as well as picture books including Fly Flies (Cicada, 2019), Alex and Alex (Cicada, 2022) and The Pocket Chaotic (Cicada, 2021).

Cristóbal Schmal is a Chilean illustrator living in Germany. His tactile ink and watercolour style has garnered many prestigious clients, including the New York Times, LA Times, Greenpeace and Lufthansa. This is his first book.