Beautiful non-fiction: Animals

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, or you follow me on Instagram, it won’t come as a surprise to you to learn that Frida loves animals. She has done since she was tiny, and her interest has only gotten stronger as she has grown. Because of this deep love she has, we have acquired a lot of beautiful non-fiction books on animals and the natural world, and I wanted to share our favourites so far with you. Any of these books would make amazing gifts, and they have all been given an enthusiastic Frida stamp of approval.

Shall we begin?

The Natural History Book. I bought this recently, and my goodness it was love at first sight; for Frida and for me. It covers over 5,000 species of microbe, fungus, rock, mineral, and of course, a LOT of animals. I would say this incredible reference book is a must if you plan on home educating… and actually, it’s a must if you’re not. Buy the book, it’s incredible and you won’t regret it.

Animalium. Surely this is hovering near the top of every “beautiful books on animals” list? Beautiful, informative, and oh so special. If you’re ever stuck with what to buy a child as a gift, I’m sure this would go down well. We are also loving BotanicumEdit, and are looking forward to getting our hands on Dinosaurium one day.

Atlas of Animal Adventures. A wonderful book featuring different amazing animals from around the globe. I really like that they are divided into continents, with a map at the beginning of each section. We often get Frida’s globe out whilst reading it. We love it so much that I’ve just ordered Atlas of Dinosaur Adventures. Can you believe this will be Frida’s first proper dinosaur book?

British Wildlife. We don’t read this as much anymore, but it it a wonderful book for learning language and the names of all our wildlife (flora and fauna). This was one of our most-read books for months and months between the ages of one and two. In the same series we also love Brilliant Birds and Animals.

The Blue Whale and The Polar Bear. These are both stunning; worth buying for the illustrations alone, with reading over and over for the wealth of information contained about these two iconic species.

All of the Nature Storybooks series! I know it’s a bit cheeky to recommend a whole series but I couldn’t just pick one. At the moment Frida is loving Surprising SharksEdit as she is still very much in a sea life phase.

How Animals Build. My mum bought this for Frida at Christmas and it’s been a firm favourite ever since. Loads of flaps and pull-out pages, great illustrations, and some surprising facts. I highly recommend it.

Insect Emporium. This gem shows that a genuinely beautiful book on bugs is possible!

Ocean and Forest. We love these these two books so much I wrote a whole post about them.

The Ladybird. Despite its humble subject, this book is ridiculously lovely. It would make such a fun gift for a little insect lover.

We Travel So Far. This is a stunning book on animal migration. Each double page spread features a different animal’s migration story, a simple explanation accompanying beautiful illustrations.

199 Things Under the Sea. Given how much Frida loves sea creatures, it’s no surprise that she adores this. It’s a simple book which is brilliant for language acquisition, and it’s been a big hit in our house since we bought it. The rest of the series looks lovely too, with 199 Things in the Garden and 199 Things on the Farm looking especially good for young animal lovers.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but I hope it’ll give you some ideas if you’re looking for some beautiful non-fiction books on animals.

As March slowly approaches, our winter books long put away, I’m starting to think about spring books. I’ve been dusting off the ones we already own and I’ve recently bought a few new ones, so I will share those with you soon…

What are your favourite animal books? Are there any you think should be on our list?