Having a house full of boys, animals seem to be a favorite topic of interest around these parts. We live on a farm where the boys learn some very real life lessons about animals- the good, bad and the ugly. It isn't uncommon for one of them to come bursting thru the door holding a squirming bug by it's wings or find them fishing in water troughs for tad poles. Learning about animals seems to be a very natural part of early childhood. With our first dabblings in school this year, we throw in some outdoor nature exploration and some good books on nature and animals and call it "science"! So I am always on the lookout for a good animal book to add to the stack. I can already tell that The Illustrated Compendium of Amazing Animal Facts by Maja Safstrom is going to be often picked up resource!
I love the gorgeous, high quality cover of this book and that it adds a little, grown up "class" to my book shelf full of bright colored children's books. The illustrations themselves are done in minimalist black and white and I feel that was a wise choice. The pared down palette helps to unify the book and keep the focus on the fun, little details of the drawings and the written facts.
My oldest son and I sat down together, as soon as this book came in the mail, and read thru the whole thing! It is an impressive 100+ pages of animal fact fun and he was mesmerized till the end. I loved watching his facial expression as I read some of the more outrageous facts about different animals! There seemed to be a slight theme of the more "shocking" facts having to do with poop, (which I, personally, could do without) but my son, being a boy, found some amusement in those.
This cleverly illustrated volume will be great to have as a fun book in our school rotation. I feel it would be a great gift purchase for animal- obsessed kids as well!
"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."
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