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Where Are You Really From?: Our amazing evolution, what race really is and what makes us human
Who do you think you are?
Have you ever thought about who you might be related too? What if we told you were related to vicious Vikings, Roman emperors, great kings and feisty queens?
Well, your majesty, you are. In fact, everyone is. And geneticist Adam Rutherford is here to tell you why.
On this extraordinary adventure through millions of years of human history, young readers will learn the story of our species. They will meet kings and queens. They will see how humans migrated far and wide around the globe. And they will discover that no matter what skin colour you have, language you speak or place you are from - we all share the same small pool of ancestors.
Armed with a deeper understanding of science and history, readers will learn how to dismantle common myths of who we really are - like what race is, where we come from, and what it means to be human.
Mind-boggling, entertaining and illuminating, this is the epic story of you and everyone who has ever lived!
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 28, 2023
6 people are currently reading
294 people want to read
About the author
Adam Rutherford
34 books669 followersAdam David Rutherford is a British geneticist, author, and broadcaster. He was an audio-visual content editor for the journal Nature for a decade, is a frequent contributor to the newspaper The Guardian, hosts the BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science, has produced several science documentaries and has published books related to genetics and the origin of life.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 6, 2023
What an insightful, amazing book. I have a relatively good understanding about human evolution (as an adult!) but this book will make any child a whizz. Rutherford & Co, do an amazing job and summarising and pushing the story about ‘Us’ (our species) and what evolution shows right from the very beginning of our planet, to our species. Covering aspects of geography, history of science and racism - this should be a book in every school!!
Thanks to netgalley and Wren and Rook!
Thanks to netgalley and Wren and Rook!
November 24, 2023
The kind of book which I wish I had read as a kid.
March 19, 2024
very colourful guide to how we came to be!
August 7, 2025
This nonfiction book is written for middle-grade readers, roughly ages 9–14. When I first started it, I thought I’d found a rare gem that explained DNA and evolution in a truly child-friendly way. The first four chapters really impressed me — they felt like a light, humorous version of Some Assembly Required by Neil Shubin.
The book begins with the formation of Earth, moves to the earliest living things, and then to human evolution and the present day. These topics are delivered in short, lively sentences with the help of illustrations that make abstract ideas accessible and even funny. One example I liked: I learned for the first time that the moon may have formed from a chunk of Earth knocked out by an asteroid — and that this might be what gave Earth its tilted axis. Coincidentally, my son had just learned this at school and asked me if I knew. (Yes! For once, I was ready with an answer.)
It also uses diagrams to show how DNA inheritance and mutation work. The book explains how each person gets half their DNA from their mother and half from their father, and how mutations can arise during the copying process. One figure illustrates this in a simple but vivid way: a character with no ears passes on a "mistaken" copy that includes ears, and suddenly the next generation can hear. If the unmutated version gets passed on instead, the next generation still has no hearing.
Another fun example: adaptation through spelling errors. The book walks you through how a meerkat turns into a dead cat in just four steps by changing one letter at a time — meer kat → deer kat → dear kat → dead kat → dead cat. The humor and visuals are great.
I also liked the clever timeline metaphor: imagine the entire history of Earth compressed into one calendar year. In that case, humans don’t show up until 11:20 p.m. on December 31 — and you, the reader, were born one second before midnight. That image really lands.
So by chapter 4, I thought I’d found exactly what I was hoping for: an engaging, age-appropriate intro to biology and evolution. But starting from chapter 5, the focus shifts. The remaining chapters deal more with race, stereotypes, and social identity. The authors spend several pages explaining that almost everyone can trace their lineage back to royalty, and from there they move into discussions of racism. The tone also shifts — it's less concise and more wordy, with a lot more commentary than science.
While I understand that race and identity are important topics for children to reflect on, this wasn’t the direction I expected. The book occasionally includes examples of racism faced by various groups, but it focuses most heavily on the experience of Black people, with brief mentions of Asians and Native Americans. I assume this is partly because one of the authors is British, so the examples skew toward British and European history.
I wouldn’t say the later chapters are bad — they just belong to a different kind of book. If you're expecting a purely science-focused introduction to evolution and genetics, this may feel off-track. But if you're looking for a broader book that includes some biology alongside social commentary for kids, this might suit your needs better.
The authors do present one message throughout the book that I do appreciate: scientists don’t know everything. Saying “I don’t know” is part of doing science — asking questions, making mistakes, and staying curious matters more than having all the answers. That’s a healthy mindset for children to absorb.
That said, a couple of things bothered me. There are at least two or three typos, which is frustrating in a published book for kids. Also, it uses expressions like “it sucks,” which I personally find unnecessary and not particularly suitable for young readers.
All in all, the first four chapters were just what I was looking for — accessible, educational, and fun. The rest of the book wasn’t quite what I expected, and some parts felt a bit forced. Still, I’ll let my child read it and see what sparks his curiosity. And I’ll keep looking for other nonfiction books that balance science and storytelling in a way that really works for kids.
The book begins with the formation of Earth, moves to the earliest living things, and then to human evolution and the present day. These topics are delivered in short, lively sentences with the help of illustrations that make abstract ideas accessible and even funny. One example I liked: I learned for the first time that the moon may have formed from a chunk of Earth knocked out by an asteroid — and that this might be what gave Earth its tilted axis. Coincidentally, my son had just learned this at school and asked me if I knew. (Yes! For once, I was ready with an answer.)
It also uses diagrams to show how DNA inheritance and mutation work. The book explains how each person gets half their DNA from their mother and half from their father, and how mutations can arise during the copying process. One figure illustrates this in a simple but vivid way: a character with no ears passes on a "mistaken" copy that includes ears, and suddenly the next generation can hear. If the unmutated version gets passed on instead, the next generation still has no hearing.
Another fun example: adaptation through spelling errors. The book walks you through how a meerkat turns into a dead cat in just four steps by changing one letter at a time — meer kat → deer kat → dear kat → dead kat → dead cat. The humor and visuals are great.
I also liked the clever timeline metaphor: imagine the entire history of Earth compressed into one calendar year. In that case, humans don’t show up until 11:20 p.m. on December 31 — and you, the reader, were born one second before midnight. That image really lands.
So by chapter 4, I thought I’d found exactly what I was hoping for: an engaging, age-appropriate intro to biology and evolution. But starting from chapter 5, the focus shifts. The remaining chapters deal more with race, stereotypes, and social identity. The authors spend several pages explaining that almost everyone can trace their lineage back to royalty, and from there they move into discussions of racism. The tone also shifts — it's less concise and more wordy, with a lot more commentary than science.
While I understand that race and identity are important topics for children to reflect on, this wasn’t the direction I expected. The book occasionally includes examples of racism faced by various groups, but it focuses most heavily on the experience of Black people, with brief mentions of Asians and Native Americans. I assume this is partly because one of the authors is British, so the examples skew toward British and European history.
I wouldn’t say the later chapters are bad — they just belong to a different kind of book. If you're expecting a purely science-focused introduction to evolution and genetics, this may feel off-track. But if you're looking for a broader book that includes some biology alongside social commentary for kids, this might suit your needs better.
The authors do present one message throughout the book that I do appreciate: scientists don’t know everything. Saying “I don’t know” is part of doing science — asking questions, making mistakes, and staying curious matters more than having all the answers. That’s a healthy mindset for children to absorb.
That said, a couple of things bothered me. There are at least two or three typos, which is frustrating in a published book for kids. Also, it uses expressions like “it sucks,” which I personally find unnecessary and not particularly suitable for young readers.
All in all, the first four chapters were just what I was looking for — accessible, educational, and fun. The rest of the book wasn’t quite what I expected, and some parts felt a bit forced. Still, I’ll let my child read it and see what sparks his curiosity. And I’ll keep looking for other nonfiction books that balance science and storytelling in a way that really works for kids.
March 2, 2024
A very earnest book that uses a chatty, discursive style (and several cartoons) to convey the whole science of evolution, with the ultimate aim being chapters on the non-science of race. Therefore everything is covered, from the Big Bang to the Zephyrosaurus, and from Linnaean dodginess to that there Floyd career criminal. We are shown the entire story of our existence, the evolution and movement of mankind, the Identical Ancestors Point (which hopefully shuts up that horrid actor whose name escapes me about how he's a descendant of a king), and why nasty colonial types were behind socially segregating our fellow humans based on their colour and where we found them when we were invading their parts.
I think this could have been horrific, but actually it is a commendable story, well told. Yes it builds up to the one sole point, and it might still seem like too big a swing between two covers, to go from biological classification to Rosa Parks, and to say 'this is a stereotype and it's bad, because this is what the DNA says'. It certainly might have laboured the 'white privilege' route, but doesn't mention it. A better sociology book (even one considering the target age-range here, of 9-14s) would know that that there career criminal Floyd and the whole BLM movement were not the perfect things to put uncritically in an anti-prejudice book, given the incredibly heinous results from the collective anti-police stereotype that all that fermented. But this generally is a very intelligent, multidisciplined read, and one that is inescapably well-intentioned and successful.
I think this could have been horrific, but actually it is a commendable story, well told. Yes it builds up to the one sole point, and it might still seem like too big a swing between two covers, to go from biological classification to Rosa Parks, and to say 'this is a stereotype and it's bad, because this is what the DNA says'. It certainly might have laboured the 'white privilege' route, but doesn't mention it. A better sociology book (even one considering the target age-range here, of 9-14s) would know that that there career criminal Floyd and the whole BLM movement were not the perfect things to put uncritically in an anti-prejudice book, given the incredibly heinous results from the collective anti-police stereotype that all that fermented. But this generally is a very intelligent, multidisciplined read, and one that is inescapably well-intentioned and successful.
October 30, 2023
Very well written book, full of entertaining facts, that raises as many questions as it answers (and, just to be different from every other book that I've read, freely it acknowledges this fact!).
The history of the Universe, the history of life, and the history of civilization are all covered and the bottom line is - we're all from a common root.
Hopefully, if more people read this book and others like it, they'll take the lessons to heart, and start getting along with others instead of just shipping them off to Rwanda!
A good thought provoking book that should be required reading for - well, pretty much anyone, really.
The history of the Universe, the history of life, and the history of civilization are all covered and the bottom line is - we're all from a common root.
Hopefully, if more people read this book and others like it, they'll take the lessons to heart, and start getting along with others instead of just shipping them off to Rwanda!
A good thought provoking book that should be required reading for - well, pretty much anyone, really.
December 17, 2023
Adam Rutherford is a geneticist, science writer and broadcaster. E. L. Norry is an experienced writer of fiction and non-fiction for children. This is a very readable guide to genetics for readers aged 9+that explains evolution, genes, race and tying it in with racism and racist myths. Adam Ming’s illustrations work perfectly with the text and I think the authors strike the right tone, getting over facts but with humour that keeps you engaged.
October 2, 2024
Informative and fun to read - an excellent exploration of the history of human evolution and scientific racism perfectly pitched to middle grade readers. The comic strips at the end of each section will definitely appeal to my students.
With my IB librarian hat on, as an educator who supports children in developing research skills, I really wish information books in this kind of format included an index. Just in case someone in publishing happens to stumble across this review…
With my IB librarian hat on, as an educator who supports children in developing research skills, I really wish information books in this kind of format included an index. Just in case someone in publishing happens to stumble across this review…
May 28, 2024
I really enjoyed this visually interesting & engaging book that packs in a lot of information about all sorts of topics - evolution, adaptation, race, racism, stereotypes and more! Would make an excellent addition to the school library as well as linking with the curriculum. Suitable for upper KS2 (10+ years) and KS3.
March 11, 2025
wish I had this when I was kid wish I had this when the Aussie kids dragged my braids pushed me onto the ground wish I had this when that Spanish peer asked me why yer here studying French and English lit had to watch the silent smirk of that English girl living next door at student hall unfold unbound
March 12, 2024
A very good popularisation of Big History (in particular evolutionary and social history) that I enjoyed reading to my son. I did feel at times that the tone was pitched slightly lower (top of key stage 2) than the vocabulary (top of key stage 3) but overall a very worthy and well-produced account.
December 11, 2024
Excellent book. The best this year. I think everyone should read it! Certainly a copy will be in my library soon. Teachers of PSHE - there is easily a term's worth of ideas here!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews