Animalium

Reviewed by: Patricia Temple - Long Island Community Library, Long Island, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: December 4, 2014

Review

This oversized volume is designed to mimic a visit to a Natural History museum, taking the reader/visitor through an introduction the tree of animal life then on through exhibits of increasingly complex life forms. The text gives a good concise description of each gallery of the museum representing different classes of animal life. Readers will be tempted to flip right to the large, striking artwork, but as with brick and mortar museums, it is helpful to the overall enjoyment if a bit of time is spent on the preface and "Welcome" pages. Intricate scientific drawings, digitally colored, are beautifully played out on the page. As mentioned in the preface of the book, this book is an overview of diversity meant to fascinate and inspire. The backwater includes a few helpful websites for further browsing and an index that unfortunately includes all the latin names but not all the common ones. This is a wonderful browsing book that mimics a casual visit to a Natural History museum, but should not be expected to be used as a resource for academic reports.

Overall Book Score: good