Wonderful Books about Weird Creatures

These wonderful books about weird creatures are a great introduction to the species with which we share our planet. Find unconventional beauty in some of the world’s wackiest creatures! Children will find these books far more interesting than another computer game.

A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures is an introduction to wonderfully strange beasts, with facts on conservation, diet, quirks and habitat. Meet:

1. The Bornean orangutan (whose immense cheek pads give a ‘dinner plate’ face)
2. The red-lipped batfish is a terrible swimmer (with leg-shaped fins better for walking on the sea floor)
3. The mysterious goblin shark (rarely seen by humans) with a long snout and terrifying flexible jaw to snatch its prey. The Amazon river dolphins
4. The monkey slug caterpillar
5. The star-nose mole
6. The black rain frog

Who Are You Calling Weird? is a celebration of weird and wonderful animals. And downright bizarre. This marvellous book will instil a love of all creatures for both children and yourself. In this book you’ll meet:

1. The pink wiggly appendage of a star-nosed mole
2. The three-toed sloth with his green fur
3. The long, skeletal finger of an aye-aye (to locate insects in trees)
4. The barrel-shaped eyes of a fish that turns upward to see prey through its transparent head
5. The big bulbous nose of a monkey (to attract a mate)
6. The armour-like scales of a pangolin (so tough that even lions and tigers can’t bite through them).
7. A smelly bird that climbs trees with claws
8. A roly-poly scaly creature
9. A duck-billed egg-laying critter

Tiny Monsters looks at unusual insects, mites and spiders that often can only be seen through a microscope. Found in our laws and gardens, and in our food, beds, clothes and even our eyelashes. These tiny monsters may seem like aliens from another planet, but live right alongside us. And nearly all are harmless – and even helpful.

A Curious Collection of Wild Companions educates children on 60 plants and animals that can’t live without each other – from the most peculiar pairs in nature! These wild relationships are incredible:

1. The sloth and ‘sloth moth’
2. The kinkajou and balsa tree
3. A stick insect feasts among Melaleuca plants
4. A handfish lays eggs on a sea squirt
5. Why Egyptian plovers sit in crocodiles’s mouths
6. How wolves and ravens work together

Sami Bayly holds a degree in natural history illustration from University of Newcastle (Australia). She’s drawn to finding the beauty and importance in all living things, regardless of their appearance, and is eager to share her appreciation with others.

The World’s Most Ridiculous Animals is a witty and quirky illustrated book about the most absurd and flamboyant animals on the planet. With hilarious text and bright contemporary illustrations, children can learn about evolution at the same time, noting the funny labelled diagrams.

The World’s Most Pointless Animals (or are they!?) Again, children will learn that in fact, all animals have a purpose. From giraffes (who don’t have vocal chords) to the pink fairy armadillo (with absurdly huge front claws, and a super protective baby pink shell), they will also learn about how:

1. Koalas spend up to 18 hours a day asleep
2. Pandas are born bright pink, deaf and blind
3. Dumbo octopuses flap their big fin-like ears to move around
4. A Narwhal’s tusk grows through its upper lip – ouch!

Includes excellent made-up Latin names (the jellyfish’s scientific name is not actually wibblious wobblious ouchii)