Creaturepedia
Adrienne Barman
Wide Eyed Editions
This large volume is a superb visual treat and exemplification of nature as designer, illustrating six hundred or so animals large and small, real and imagined. These are divided into categories such as The architects, The champion breath-holders, The big mouths, The masters of camouflage,

The pretty-in-pinks, The prickly ones, The mythical, The vanished, The showoffs, which cut across class barriers so that fish, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles etc. may be grouped together under a single heading. Every animal is captioned, with many having a short information snippet. A fair few of the animal names may be unfamiliar (unless of course you happen to be a zoology specialist); the likes of binturong, kakapo or Cory’s shearwater – what deliciously strange sounding creatures – are likely to send you off on further explorations, on line or in other books, of the animal kingdom.
There is humour, both verbal – the Tiger,

Orca, Little owl and Montagu’s harrier are among ‘The munch-it-uppers’ and visual – I love the way The sprinters are shown (or rather not shown)

for example and The big-eared beasts surely cannot fail to make you smile.

Highly recommended for the family bookshelf, for primary and secondary school libraries, art departments and of course, science departments, in colleges.

Nature’s Day
Kay Maguire and Danielle Kroll
Wide Eyed Editions
In this stylishly illustrated book we visit eight different locations – the garden, the vegetable patch, the woods, the farm, the fields, the pond, the orchard and the street.

Starting in the spring, each place in turn is visited and then revisited during summer, autumn and winter chronicling the seasonal changes to the flora and fauna of the specific natural environment.
There is a seasonal narrative running throughout the whole which describes what is happening, gently urging us to stop, look and listen and then each location also has an introductory paragraph as well as interwoven with the illustrations, more specific information about for instance, bird song in the spring garden.

The author realistically points out that in addition to the buzzing of bees and the birdsong of the richly coloured summer garden, one is likely to hear – on account of the speed that the grass grows – the weekly hum of a lawnmower.

My slight reservation with this otherwise excellent book is that although beautifully painted, some of the birds and animals have only a passing resemblance to the species referred to in the text. Nevertheless it is certain to make you get outside and enjoy the natural world all year round, no matter where you live.

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