What is the quality of the Romanian biology textbooks? The article gives answers to this question by watching the evolution of a textbook and by suggesting an exercise for analyzing and assessing the alternative biology textbooks. The opportunity of this analysis has been offered to students, future teachers of biology, around the time when they will directly use the textbooks for preparing and teaching the lessons. The main objective of this coordinated exercise of exploring the quality of the alternative biology textbooks is the development of the students' abilities to critically analyze the textbooks which they will use in the near future and for which they will have to express alternative options. The interests of the authors are also focused on the role of the textbooks in the learning process, on the analysis of their contribution to the students' progress in the scientific knowledge but also to their personal development. The textbook, as a source of the basic knowledge of biology as a school subject, but also as a collector of methodological ideas, is a "territory" that is insufficiently explored by students in the initial teaching preparation.