Encyclopedia of Animals

... if the pages of over 3/4th of the book were not stuck together and impossible to unstick without tearing all of the pages...

Very nice illustrations, lots of information. As an artist and an armchair naturalist, I have an expanding collection of books about natural history, and this is a welcome addition to my library.

This book gives you a decent amount of information. I never even knew that insects had more species then all the other orders and that the beetles have the most species and subspecies of all the insect families. Very interesting if you want to know your animals.

We bought this book 6 months ago for my then 2 1/2 yo son and it is still by far his favorite book. There are pictures and snippets of info on so many animals he has never been bored with it. Rather than just identifying an animal as a shark, bear or fish etc, he loves identifying the different types of each animal. He loves for someone to read it to him, but he also simply enjoys just lying on the floor with it looking at the pictures. Even though it is a very large book, as a small 2 1/2yo he could still get it off the shelf and look at it himself if he wanted. It is very sturdy so it is still in great shape after MANY readings. We had been considering buying this new from National Geographic at a $40 advertised price so were amazed to find it USED for about $5. So well worth the $5, but seeing how much he loves it and how much he has learned from it already, I think even if we had paid $40, we would have thought it worth the price.

I am a substitute teacher and I have spent the last 4 weeks in a first grade classroom. From the minute I brought the book into the classroom it has been the favorite of all the students especially the boys. They can't read all of it but they love looking up the animals and are excited to show me their favorite animals. It is a great book to expose kids of all ages to animals. The lizards, snakes and insect are the favorite pages.

About 3 months ago I bought my first copy and lent the book to a First Grade Class. The teacher told me a good number of the kids really liked the book and later on a lot of them thanked me for it. I bought a copy for them to keep in their class. Since them I have bought copies for my great-granddaughter and my granddaughter. Recently I lent it to a Fourth Grader that loved it and asked for it as her upcoming birthday present. Kids do love it (most of them anyway!).

I bought this encyclopedia for my 7 year-old daughter who is obsessed with the great cats. She was thrilled! We had borrowed the previous edition (with the tree frog on the front) from the library, so I already knew that she loved the book. But now, with the tiger on the front, it's one of her favorite possessions. We're a month past Christmas, and she is still consulting this book regularly, drawing pictures of the various animals shown in full-color, and learning so many facts that she's becoming a walking encyclopedia herself. The organization and layout is very user-friendly. This is not an alphabetized A-Z book of animals. The mammals, insects, birds, etc. are all groups according to categories of related creatures. This is a very helpful feature. We give the book two thumbs up!!

I got 2 of these books for Christmas gifts to my niece and nephew. They are great, the kids love the pictures and they really enjoy looking at them. It really helps the kids understand that there are so many other animals out there.