Bailey Harris, the eighteen-year-old secular activist and author of the children's science book series Stardust, is preparing to release a new book, Darwin's Journey.
Bailey has never been afraid to take on creationists and science deniers, including her hilarious tour of the Ark Encounter. This new book builds on her work to help children and families understand the important concepts of evolution by natural selection, while fostering a sense of wonder at the amazing world we live in. She's working to broaden her audience and gain exposure for the release of this new book through a Kickstarter, which you can support here.
Bailey's activism began one evening when she was eight years old, watching the television show Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey with her family. In that episode, host and narrator Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "The planets, the stars, the galaxies, we ourselves, and all of life -- the same star stuff." Bailey was so inspired by this idea that she immediately went to the family computer, opened a new document, and began writing what eventually became her first book, My Name is Stardust.
Follow-up books in the series included Stardust Explores the Solar System and Stardust Explores Earth's Wonders. These books present important concepts in astronomy, geology, biology, and principles such as the Big Bang and evolution.
The success of the Stardust book series has allowed Bailey to take her message around the world both in person and virtually. She has used this platform to promote science and freethought, speaking at various events such as HumanLight, American Humanist Association, DragonCon, FFRF, Freethought Society and the Center For Inquiry's annual CSICon 2019.
Evolution education has become a passion for Bailey as she's worked with children and families over the years. After the release of her third book, Stardust Explores Earth's Wonders, which introduces the concepts of natural selection in a fun and simple way, parents began asking Bailey for more resources. In 2021, Bailey responded to these requests by releasing an evolution education game called GoExtinct! Stardust Catches the Carnivores. In this game players complete sets of animals based on actual genetic clades, working to collect the most sets by inferring the other player's cards and identifying common ancestors on the evolutionary tree. By the end, players understand the amazing fact that every carnivoran alive today -- from the house cat to the polar bear -- descended from a single prehistoric ancestor, the miacid!
Bailey's new book continues to address these requests from families, taking readers on a special adventure to the Galápagos Islands to learn about the plants and animals that helped Darwin develop his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin's Journey uses a simple, charming story and beautiful artwork to inspire curiosity about life on Earth, while also teaching the scientific method and demonstrating the importance of evidence-based reasoning with accessible real-world examples.
When Charles Darwin introduced his theory of evolution, it sparked a golden age of biology. 160 years later, the modern theory of evolution synthesizes genetics, development, math, natural history, paleontology, and virtually every other field of biology into one coherent explanation for why life on Earth exists -- and why so much of it is awesomely weird.
A strong foundation in evolution can help us tackle a variety of big challenges, from saving endangered species to reversing antibiotic resistance, to improving agriculture and feeding the planet.
You can support Bailey through her Kickstarter as she works to bring this important message to families around the world.