The Natural World

By Author / Illustrator

John Farndon, Paul Boston

Genre

Adventure

Age range(s)

Publisher

Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd

ISBN

9781786038920

Format

Hardback

Published

16-07-2019

Synopsis

Get ready for the journey of a lifetime... up in the sky! Bird's Eye View: The Natural World takes you on an amazing, fact-filled aerial journey around the world with stunning views of its landscapes, and the animals and plants that live in them. Three of the twelve soaring panoramas fold out on each side to create fabulous double-wide vistas.

Discover the incredible natural world as you float over:

The Florida Everglades

Tropical South America

Coral islands in the Pacific Ocean

Uluru rock in Australia

China's magical Guilin Hills

The Central Asian steppe

The Himalayas

The African Serengeti

A Welsh river

Northern Scandinavia

Sea cliffs of the Irish coast

French countryside

Each gorgeous spread introduces a new region from above, with text describing its key geological features and inhabitants. Along the bottom of the page, illustrations identify a selection of the location's animals and plants, and a globe pinpoints where it is on the map. Included in the scenes is evidence of the damage that humans can do, like oil pollution in the Arctic ocean and deforestation in the Amazon.

Join the great white egret as you fly over the Everglades and the whooper swans as you soar over the Arctic. Spot the gray reef sharks swimming the lagoon of a coral atoll, the red kangaroos bounding across the Australian desert, the herds of wildebeest migrating across the Serengeti and the snow leopard prowling the foothills of the Himalayas. Look at the world differently, with a bird's eye view.

Reviews

John Farndon has given us another brilliant non-fiction book. This time it is all about the natural world from a unique perspective. Bird's Eye View: The Natural World is a picture book with beautiful illustrations from Paul Boston. The illustrations involve lots of intricate details that give the reader a good snapshot of the types of human and physical features of our world and the wildlife that inhabits it. As a reader, you are taken on a journey around the world from the perspective of beautiful birds such as the Great White Egret and the Whooper Swans. As they soar over incredible views of landscapes from the lofty heights of the Himalayas to the humbler views of a Welsh river, readers are immersed in a plethora of facts to read about the environment and wildlife on the page.

There are twelve panoramas to discover with three of them as large pull-out pages that get a 'wow' from my little boy every time I open them. The text can be quite difficult for younger readers to engage with but the 'spot the animal' activity at the bottom of every page helps make the book accessible for a range of age groups. Therefore, I would suggest an age range of between 5-9. I would have liked to see some kind of 'Wow facts' or a 'fun facts' section - or something along those lines - so that children really have something that they can associate with a particular region.

This book could easily be used as a teaching resource and would compliment any primary classroom's bookshelf. It would great to support the teaching of geography to a good range of primary children because of how many regions that this book covers. In summary a very good book with beautiful illustrations that provide a fantastic perspective of the world which creates a foundation for accompanying facts to be discovered.

44 pages / Ages 5-9 years / Reviewed by James Hewish, teacher