The Man Who Knew Everything: The Strange Life of Athanasius Kircher

Written by Marilee Peters

Illustrated by Roxanna Bikadoroff

Annick Press

978-1-55451-974-3

60 pp.

Ages 9-12

October 2017

Athanasius Kircher, born in 1602 Germany, dreamed of being someone extraordinary, perhaps a scientist or an author or a scholar.  The insatiably curious child who was prone to reckless behaviour to indulge that inquisitiveness would be proud to know that people regarded him as "The Man Who Knew Everything."

Asking questions about all he encountered, Athanasius Kircher chose to become a Jesuit at age 16 so that he might travel away from his village and experience everything the world might hold.  But with the onset of the religious war known as the Thirty Years' War, Kircher found himself evading the conflict by heading to the safety of the Roman Catholicism-based Rome where he became a professor of mathematics.  However, Kircher never limited his drive for knowledge to that field and pursued interests in everything.  From machines that transmitted sound to the secrets harboured within the earth, Kircher's pursuit of knowledge placed him in countless precarious positions.  It may have been the time of the Scientific Revolution when questions about the age of the earth and foundations of life were being asked but it was also the time of the Inquisition when the Church went after those whom they felt threatened their belief system.  Kircher persisted, embarking on dangerous explorations into the heart of a volcano, collaborating with scientists and priests around the world to formulate his ideas about the earth's development and publishing The Underground World, a compendium of his theories.  To share his ideas and display the many exotic oddities he discovered and was gifted, Kircher established a showcase for them, the Kircherian Museum in Rome.

From The Man Who Knew Everything

by Marilee Peters 

illus. by Roxanna Bikadoroff

Marilee Peters ensures that young readers understand that this strange man, with his innovative and bizarre ideas, was imaginative, brilliant and ahead of his times in many ways.  He didn't always get things right, like the use of rocks to extract snake venom or a mammoth bone identified as that of ancient supersized humans, but his original thinking, definitely outside the box, allowed for new ideas to come to the forefront and be considered for future study.  He was a pioneer of the scientific method and probably originated the concept of promoting science by linking it with the wonder of its magic.  (The lobster statue "vomiting" water would be a prime example.) It's not surprising that the word "kircherize" was generated to mean the making of connections between unrelated things.

From The Man Who Knew Everything 

by Marilee Peters 

illus. by Roxanna Bikadoroff

As biography, The Man Who Knew Everything is somewhat a departure for Marilee Peters whose non-fiction for young people includes 10 Rivers That Shaped the World (Annick, 2015) and Making It Right: Building Peace, Settling Conflict (Annick, 2015) but her fastidious research and ability to bring imagination to her topics of study are definitely there.  The text, never extensive but always illuminating, is like a museum of information, short snippets of knowledge bites.  With Roxanna Bikadoroff's quirky illustrations (recently seen in The Alphabet Thief; Groundwood, 2017), The Man Who Knew Everything has a Monty Pythonesque vibe (recall their TV show of the 1970s): a little irreverent, a lot of details and a general impression of something innovative.  By encompassing lots of biographical info and scientific thought in an unconventional style, The Man Who Knew Everything works for a visionary whose unusual drive for knowledge opened many doors and left many open for further exploration. He might not have actually known everything, but he sure tried.

From The Man Who Knew Everything 

by Marilee Peters 

illus. by Roxanna Bikadoroff