A Dangerous Idea: The Scopes Trial, the Original Fight over Science in Schools

“There was never before, and has never been, another day in court like it,” asserts Levy (Change Is in the Air) in this riveting work about The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, commonly known as the Scopes Monkey Trial. Following his first year of teaching in May 1925, Dayton, Tenn., educator John Thomas Scopes (1900–1970)—who’d been filling in for the school’s biology teacher—is informed by the chairman of the Rhea County school board, two lawyers, the school superintendent, and a nearby business owner that he’s been charged with breaking the law for teaching his students about human evolution. “Since when was teaching a unit in biology class a crime?” Levy writes in conversational prose. “Since seven weeks earlier,” following the instating of House Bill 185, or the Butler Act, which forbid “the teaching of any theory that denies the story of Divine Creation.” Archival b&w photos alongside divisive and thorough text depicts the court case and its impact, resulting in a look at two combatting schools of thought—fundamentalist vs. science-backed rhetoric—and the figures who became the face of them. A timeline and sources conclude. Ages 10–14. (Jan.)