Customer Reviews

The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Animals, birds, insects, fishes and reptiles have always fascinated people. This book provides as comprehensive a guide as it is reasonably possible to do on such a broad subject in a single book. There are plenty of photographs and drawings to support the text. All of it is well laid out and easy to read.

The overview at the beginning of the book makes clear that the co-authors believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, acknowledging the alternative theory of creation but being somewhat dismissive of it. This overview also covers biology, habitat and endangered species as well as evolution.

Anybody wishing to read it from cover to cover faces a daunting (albeit very enjoyable) prospect - however, the book is structured in such a way that you can dip into the book for the information you want and usually find it easily (though I wonder how many people would know to look for rabbits under their group name lagomorphs), with separate sections for each main category of creature and each section sub-divided appropriately.

Understandably, the biggest main section is devoted to mammals. Here you will find six pages devoted to the dog family, ten to the cat family and three to horses and related species. Obviously, a book like this can never offer much more than an appreciation of the diversity of life on our planet, but in this it does an excellent job. The pictures should appeal to people of all ages including even small children, thus helping to interest them in the subject. The text is not too technical so all readers can expand their knowledge via this book.

Of course, you can explore the natural world in greater detail by collecting books devoted to birds, butterflies, cats, dogs, horses, fishes or whatever appeals to you, but for such a wide-ranging book about animal life, this is as good as any I've seen.

This is a detailed book on every kind of animal (small lizards to elephants, lots of birds.) With a lot of pictures and selective paraphrasing from a few captions, it would entertain a four-year-old, yet there's enough detail a high school kid could use it for term papers. Great bargain. Big, beautiful, dense book.

We got this book when my daughter was between 2 and 2.5, and it quickly became one of her favorites. It is loaded with full color photos that kids love (although most pictures are color illustrations), and encourages them to learn their animals. She knows animals my 13 year old sister never even heard of. This isn't even a children's book. It is a real encyclopedia with real facts about the animals. I have a couple of complaints, though: 1) it is not as complete as I would like (I've noticed it's missing quite a few animals) and 2) it does not give all of the same info for all of the animals. Some are much more complete than others, and it doesn't much allow for comparisons. However, this seems to be the best animal encyclopedia out there, and we definitely enjoy it.

The editorial collaboration of George McKay, Fred Cooke, Stephen Hutchinson, Richard Vogt, and Hug Dingle, The Encyclopedia Of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide is an amazing scientific reference and "user friendly" resource for zoology students and non-specialist general readers. Full-color photographs and illustrations on every single page add a compelling touch to this amazing survey of virtually of the animal kingdom, featuring geographic distribution, habitat and feeding, distinctive traits, life cycle and more of all the myriad types of beasts known to man. The text is scientific and matter-of-fact in presenting information, yet written to be accessible to lay readers. Of especial note are the realistic artist's depictions of myriad species variations for different birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc. in order to render their different appearances crystal clear. An absolute "must-have" for private or library zoology reference shelves.

What a fantastic tome, all five pounds of it. Pages are packed with illustrated information in full color. The kids beg to look over the book, and ask for more information from the highlights. In addition, they're learning geography, as each page shows a world map with the habitat range.

Thirty years ago, a book of this caliber would have cost hundreds of dollars. Thank goodness that the world economy supports lower prices now.

I purchased this book for my 2 1/2 year old for Christmas. She loves looking at the pictures and asks questions about the animals. She will go get the book, which is almost as big as she is, and give it to me saying "Lets look at the pictures mommy". It is a great way to introduce the diversity of animals from around the world to a child. The images are both photos as well as beautifully illustrated artwork. The text portion I hope in the future will also become of interest to her once she becomes old enough. My husband and I have already found ourselves reading and learning as our daughter looks at the pictures.

I bought this as a Christmas present an artist, and it is a perfect reference book for her work. Thousands of great color illustrations, with fascinating facts to go with them. Highly recommended.

The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide
Nadia (7 years) is absolutely obsessed with animals facts. We invent animal guessing games and draw pictures of animals and watch animal documentaries. We bought this book for her birthday. Although this book weighs quite a lot and Nadia can barely lift it, she is rarely without it. She points to an animal, remarking on its long nose or silly expression and laughs at whatever new animal fact she has just read. She is so excited to share all these unusual animals with her sister Mila (4,who is very tired of watching animal documentaries and hearing animal trivia). The book has wonderful images and fun facts for all ages. If you have a little one who loves animals, we highly recommend this book! Its great for parents to read with kids, or if your child has learned to read, she or he can probably sound out most of the words like Nad does!

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The book is good because is a quick condensated way of looking at the animal world and it has good illustrations on 90% of it (only illustrations, no pictures) but it misses a lot of species of course and is bulky to handle when reading, that's why I take one star down but other than that is a good book.

We bought this for our daughter who is three and just gets lost in the book. As I have not read it from cover to cover, I cannot comment to well on the thoroughness of the content. However, any questions we have had, like what is the difference between a seal and sea lion, have been answered, which leads me to believe that the content is good. Also, it is organized by species groups, which I find really instructional in terms of seeing relations and connections between seemingly unrelated animals. The illustrations and photos are gorgeous and the book really focuses on the diversity within animal species, which is great for my daughter's comprehension of the diversity of life forms as well as geography. The books also indicates where each animal falls in the continuum of endangered species, bringing another useful and provocative layer of information to the book.