What's the Weirdest Thing about Animals? by Edward Brooke-Hitching

This novel-sized non-fiction text will be a handy and humorous quick read for children who love to find out strange and interesting facts about animals from all over the world. The book begins with a clearly set out contents page highlighting six chapters with catchy titles:

1.      Marvellously Magnificent Mammals
2.      Incredibly Interesting Invertebrates
3.      Fascinatingly Freaky Fish
4.      Beautifully Bizarre Birds
5.      Ridiculously Riveting Reptiles
6.      Amazingly Awesome Amphibians

This is followed by the introduction and then an engaging chapter on How To Talk to Animals Around the World. For example, cows moo but they also ngoah (Arabic) boe (Dutch) um-bo (Vietnamese) and horses neigh but they also iihihihi (Albanian) vrinsk (Danish) wiehiehie (German). There is a double page spread with numerous collective nouns such as an unkindness of ravens, a zeal of zebras, a maelstrom of salamanders.

Each chapter introduces the particular group of animals and then presents facts in bite-sized chunks differentiated by change of font. For example, elephants are not frightened by mice but they are scared of bees or penguins can’t pee but they are powerful poopers! Key words are highlighted, examples are given and black and white images are spread throughout.  At the end of each chapter is quick quiz. In the final pages are space to fill in some of the weird facts learnt through reading the book.

While this book is not a glossy, large format publication with multiple colour images, it remains highly accessible and easy to browse.

Themes: Animals Worldwide, Facts, Nature, Humour.

Kathryn Beilby