Recommendations for books about evolution and big bang for young children?

[gollygee]

My 5.5-year-old daughter has lots of questions about the beginning of life, "where the first baby came from", how big the universe is and how it started, etc. Oddly, my library has tons of books about religious answers to these questions and only one book about evolution for young children. I asked the librarian for help finding more and there weren't more. I asked her to consider buying more but I'm not sure if it'll happen. Or, if it does, when. I need to look harder for big bang books, but I've only found two and neither of them were very good.

I've gotten a couple of books called things like "1,000 science questions and answers" and it's really shocking how little these subjects are touched on. If memory serves me well, in the 70s when I was a kid, I read about evolution pretty frequently. I thought it was a pretty common theme for kids' science books back then. Same with the Big Bang theory. Maybe my memory isn't that great?

I'm becoming frustrated by this. I don't think there's a conspiracy against scientific answers to these kinds of questions for young children - I think book sellers are more likely just avoiding controversy. The end result is the same though.

I thought maybe parents here have already gone through this and might have suggestions. Thanks if you know of anything good! I'm googled and found titles, but I want to hear from people who have actually bought books for their kids. Books aren't cheap and I want to have a good idea the books will communicate effectively to young kids before I buy them.

[TZ]

1. When I was young I had some "Tell Me Why" books

Now, the originals are out of print but there are some updates and I believe a new compendium called The Big Book of Tell Me Why..
Here's a bit about them. Your daughter MIGHT be a bit young for these, but perhaps not. I think its a good place to start. I don't know how much they do evolution and big bang, but I think they do at least touch on the subjects.
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2007/05/tell_me_why.html