Children’s Book Review: Amazing Nature Books from Prestel Publishing

WONDERS OF NATURE

Explorations in the World of Birds, Insects, and Fish

By: Florence Guiraud

Published: October 2, 2018

Publisher: Prestel Junior

Non-Fiction

Author Florence Guiraud has a love for the beauty of insects, birds, and fish. In this book, she chose the most fascinating from the species and cataloged them here to not only share their beauty with you but to educate as well.

Since there are nearly 10,000 species of birds alone, she obviously couldn’t share all of them here in the book. Instead, she gives a brief overview of their traits related to flying…or not….their personalities, and their talents. Then she moves on to insects and fish. Through amazing illustrations, she shares the detailed designs and the intricate beauty of some of these amazing creatures.

Each illustration is named and the detail makes you think you are looking at a photograph rather than an illustration. This is an over-sized book with a hard cover and thick pages to withstand many page-turns with a child.

Dictionary pages in each section give a brief description of the bird, insect, or fish. It’s amazing the different varieties of birds, insects, and fish and the unique use of their particular style of feather or beak or scale or fin.

For children who are attracted to animals or learning about nature, this book will feed their desire for learning and I bet the parents will learn something too. If anything, it will also help a child notice the details whether it is the feathers from a bird in your yard or a butterfly that visits a flower.

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WILDERNESS

EARTH’S AMAZING HABITATS

By: Mia Cassany

Illustrated by: Marcos Navarro

Published: April 16, 2019

Publisher: Prestel Junior

Non-Fiction

I’m amazed at the beauty of the National Parks in the United States but I had never really thought of the National Parks in other countries. Mia Cassany takes readers to some of the most amazing and protected areas of our world including Africa, China, Australia, India, and Russia. Navarro’s illustrations are beautifully and vividly detailed.

Each of these natural habitats offers a home and livelihood for specific animals. Even a change in the weather or adding a dam can pose a threat to the animal’s well-being. Many of these places are homes to animals that can live nowhere else, like the eastern lowland gorillas in Kahuzi-Biega National Park or the brown pandas in Qinling Mountains. Each of these habitats offers a delicate balance of plant life, water, predators, and prey to be able to co-exist and continue the cycle of nature.

Aside from the amazing illustrations and the learning about each habitat, there is more fun hidden on the pages. The back of the book shows how many of each animal can be found on the page and gives a bit more information about that animal. The kids have a bit of adventure on each page as well.

I knew very little about most of these National Parks around our world and found this book to be fascinating and reminding me of how vast and varied our planet really is. The pages in this book are frame-worthy, offering such beauty and detail. It’s an over-sized book with a hard cover and thick pages to hold up to lots of reading. Nature-loving parents and children will love looking through and reading this book over and over again.

To purchase a copy of these books, click the photos below:

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I will be linking up this review on Booking Mama’s regular Saturday feature, Kid Konnection. This is a place for bloggers to share posts related to children’s and YA books. You will find spotlights, reviews, and sometimes even giveaways by clicking HERE, every Saturday.

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Check out my book review of AN ATLAS OF IMAGINARY PLACES by Mia Cassany, HERE.

Check out these other books I’ve reviewed about birds, HERE.

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Thanks to the publisher for sending copies of these books for the purpose of this review. This review is my honest opinion. If you choose to purchase through the above links, I may receive a small commission without you having to pay a cent more for your purchase.