“Animal Crackers” has a striking purple cover. It is light-weight and easy to bring with you to pass the time on long journeys. This book is written by Sarah Webb and illustrated by Alan Nolan. We have several of Sarah Webb’s books (e.g. “Blazing a Trail” and “A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea”) already and we have really enjoyed them all, so we were thrilled to receive a copy of “Animal Crackers”.
Alan Nolan’s black & white illustrations are excellent and make the book fun and approachable, even for younger readers. There are some sections where the book gives step by step instructions for drawing animals yourself. These are super. We also really liked the drawings of Sarah and Alan at the start of the book which made us really think about the author and illustrator behind the book.
The book covers a wide variety of different animals and contains some breathtaking facts and awesome puzzles and jokes. This is *not* just a list of animals. It’s a really well-researched book covering everything from dinosaurs, fossils and evolution to native Irish animals, types of habitats and protecting endangered species.
We are fascinated by otters and were very interested to learn that about 10,000 of them live in Ireland. We also loved learning about flying frogs!
Throughout the 176 pages, your guide Hoppy the tree frog, provides commentary and jokes which add interest to the book.
We would recommend this book for Primary School aged children, 4-12. Younger children would enjoy having this book read to them. Older children would find this book very interesting and could learn a lot (e.g. the lifecycle of a ladybird).
One extra thing which we think would improve the already brilliant book is some spot-the-difference puzzles. In future editions a detailed index might be considered as well, to help us find individual animals quickly in the book.
We scored this book 9.8 out of 10.
Book Review by the Cullen children, age range 4 -11, Dublin.
“Animal Crackers”, by Sarah Webb and illustrated by Alan Nolan, published by O’Brien Press, is now on sale for €11.99 (P/B)
Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher, O’Brien Press, free of charge to Seomra Ranga for the purposes of this review
