School Library Journal

“An attractive picture-book biography, this slim, oversize volume is as much a treat for the eye as it is for the curious mind. Smith’s crisp, realistic paintings, often flooded with the bright green of pea plants, accompany Bardoes’ readable text describing a scientist whose physical and educational needs led him to the religious life, but whose curiosity about inherited traits caused him to become the "father" of genetics. Bright diagrams clearly depict Mendel’s famous plants, the internal arrangement of their seeds, and the results of carefully controlled experiments in cross-breeding with certain traits firmly in mind. An extensive author's note presents further information. This eye-catching picture-book biography falls nicely into a field that already includes the complexities of Peter Sis’s fascinating The Tree of Life, Michael Dooling’s handsome Young Thomas Edison, James Cross Giblin’s eloquent Thomas Jefferson, and Diane Stanley’s attractive Leonardo da Vinci.”

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Kirkus Reviews

“Bardoe describes Mendel’s childhood in the country, his hunger for learning so great he went without food to pay for his lessons and eventually joined the Abbey of St. Thomas, a community of intellectuals, in order to make the pursuit of knowledge his life’s work. His groundbreaking experiments with peas justifiably occupy the bulk of the account, the descriptions of the dogged work of preparation and control painting a portrait of patience and scientific single-mindedness. Smith’s gentle illustrations fit their deliberate subject perfectly; the diagrams of the hybrid peas themselves are a marvel of clarity. The pacing of page-turns is a masterly recreation on paper of the cycle of waiting and discovery Mendel himself experienced over the years-long course of his study. The narrative moves back and forth from hard science, collegially explaining such complex concepts as genetic traits and dominant and recessive genes, to the vicissitudes of scholarship, sympathetically revealing how Mendel’s genius was overlooked during his life. A lovely tribute.”

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Booklist

“Smith’s watercolors follow Mendel from his studious, enterprising youth to his decision to become a friar, a profession that helped him “feed his body, mind, and soul” and enabled him...to pursue his desire to make a great discovery. That he was unable to convince nineteenth-century scientists that he did, indeed, discover a “universal law that would apply to all living things” brought an end to his scientific endeavors, though as Bardoe indicates, his discoveries have profoundly influenced our world. Easy-to-understand graphs show the results of Mendel’s experiments, which, along with his theories, are clearly explained...A fine source of introductory information on both the man and the science he pioneered.”