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This week’s book of the week is this wonderful non-fiction Encyclopedia of Animals written by Jules Howard and Illustrated by Jaron Vogel.
This book was gifted to me by the publisher, and the post contains affiliate links (hence the ‘ad’ tag). My full disclosure policy can be found here.
About the Book
This book is an absolutley fantastic encyclopedia of planet Earth’s animals. What I really like about this book is that it isn’t a huge unwieldy tome. I find that encyclopediae often can seem like big huge books and they can be heavy for children to handle and get to grips with. This one isn’t much bigger than a standard-sized book and it’s clear presentation makes it easy to navigate.
There is an introduction and a short guide on how to use the book. It’s split into the different types of creatures (Invertebrates, Fish, Amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals).
Each chapter starts with an overview of what the characteristics of these particular creatures are, and that makes for a great refresher for children.
How is the information presented?
The main thing for any encyclopedia is how well it conveys the information that it contains. I think The Encyclopedia of Animals does a really great job of getting across key information about a huge and diverse range of species. The illustrations are really clear with just the right level of details and Jaron Vogel has a really clear style.
I used this book recently for our Australia Day meet up when we looked at marsupials and the children enjoyed spotting the animals they knew (Koala and Kangaroo) and learning more about the Wombat and bandicoot. There’s just the right amount of information included which allowed my own children later to look at the similarities and differences between the marsupials.
All in all I have to say we have been really impressed with this Encyclopedia of Animals. It’s a wonderfully accessible book for children and as well as being stylish and wonderfully illustrated it’s jam-packed with facts and key information and is a useful addition to any non-fiction shelf. WIth around 300 species included your children will be able to learn about the more well known animals as well as plenty of lesser known ones.
If you like this book you will also like the Dictionary of Dinosaurs which follows a similar theme, style and layout.
