A fantastic, colourful, visual extravaganza – taking you on a global tour of different habitats and the creatures that live there. A great book for primary-to-intermediate aged kids who love looking at the pictures and absorbing fascinating facts to bring up later at odd times.
I’m liking
This book is so attractively designed and laid out that as soon as it arrived in the house my two oldest children (aged 6 and 9) disappeared off to the couch with it. I soon was regaled with their new-found knowledge; “Mum! The Antarctic is really a desert!” “Yeah, because a desert is a place with no rain – and it doesn’t rain there!”
The information flows nicely, and is sensibly organised.
Every page is wall-to-wall photos, with large-font text carefully overlaid, so that all the information is easily read and remembered.
The book has a wrap-around hard-cover binding, with the pages actually spiral bound with wire inside. I know it’s a weird thing, but this really made me want to open it and page through. This type of binding, aside from having a rarity-value appeal, means that the large-sized book opens flat and doesn’t keep rolling its pages shut on you. A little thing, but nice.
New Zealand even gets a mention in the Rainforest section – as an example of a cold-weather (temperate) rainforest.
Things that made me go hmmmm
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The conclusion
This is a great book to give to kids who are into animals, the planet, environmentalism, tigers, dolphins… or who just love finding out stuff! And did I mention the awesome visual design?
Double thumbs up.
