Animalium: Welcome to the Museum

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Laid out in ‘galleries’ rather than chapters, the museum metaphor is rather heavily laboured. It mimics the tradition Natural History Museum layout though by dividing the contents by taxonomic classification (mammals, birds, fish, etc.) rather than continents or countries – which is how I remember most of my childhood wildlife reference books being laid out. What comes out of this is a book that is more scientific in focus; explicitly about how and why certain creatures are grouped together by similar traits rather than just a more general ‘isn’t wildlife cool’ message. It also means that unglamorous creatures like Porifera (sea sponges) are given as much attention and explanation as traditional favourites like Birds of Prey. While it’s not a complete encyclopedia of animal life (with only 160+ featured animals it was never going to be) it provides a good overview of the larger animal groupings, alongside some interesting chosen examples from each major family on the tree of life. The information in this book is excellent, but what will entrance you the most will probably be the illustrations by Katie Scott. Her drawings were initially made with pen and ink and then colored digitally. While the information in this book is fascinating, what is most impressive is the quality of the illustrations by Richard Wilkinson. Although it looks like the book is filled with actual photographs, these are digital images that have been drawn and colored in lifelike detail.

Evaluation: Evaluation: Historium brings a fantastic museum into your living room, “open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.” It will provide endless hours of learning and delight for readers of all ages. Like Big Picture Press’ equally fantastic ‘MAPS’, this is almost A3 in size. It lends itself to this scale to showcase its abundance of breathtakingly beautiful, detailed illustrations. From the blue button jellyfish, to the Masai giraffe, many things feathered, finned, and fur-coated can be found here, and they are incredibly presented. No word of a lie – I even cooed over a sea sponge. My personal favorite of the bunch, ‘Animalium’ is a stunning celebration of biodiversity on Earth and the beautiful creatures that live here. … The illustrations are works of art, and each gallery includes wonderful facts about the creatures within. This book is perfect for all ages — I may just want a copy for myself. As we enter this virtual museum, we learn that the study of archeology includes analyzing traces left behind by civilizations through a wide range of artifacts - from tools to works of art to burial goods to writing, and even to bits of pollen, which can provide clues about the habitat and perhaps what people ate. Readers (children and adults alike) will savor and investigate this visual catalog over and over again. … A museum in a book, with spectacular colored pen-and-ink drawings, presented in an elegant 11"x15" volume.As with Botanicum: Welcome to the Museum when I reviewed it, I was simply fascinated and thoroughly impressed with the presentation, information, and art of the beautiful oversized book. In Animalium: Welcome to the Museum, we have a pretty clear presentation of Darwin's evolutionary theory as being an accepted theory. I disagree and hold to the Creation concept of the species. I still think, however, that this is a fascinating book and those who hold to either origin of creatures will discover much to interest them. Containing everything from perennials to bulbs to tropical exotica, this wonderful feast of botanical knowledge is complete with superb cross sections to show how plants work. As in companion volume Animalium by Jenny Broom and also illustrated by Scott (2014), the digitally colored images are not drawn to scale but are rendered with as much attention to visual impact as to exact, formal anatomical detail...a big, decorative, eye-filling survey.

Discovering it is a book aimed at children helped though. It clearly isn’t meant to be a thorough exploration of the different taxonomic groups, drilling down into the science behind the weirder traits, but an overview to introduce people to the basic ideas of grouping, evolution, and shared traits and to provide some visual examples (both well known and obscure). And it does that well. My wants out of a book like this are not the same as the target audiences, so I can’t rate it higher but what it aims to do it does very well. It isn’t attempting to be a children’s DK eyewitness book on animals (do children still use those? I loved them) but a beautiful reference book of much more select examples that is to be treasured as well as educational. And I don’t think you have to be 8-12 to appreciate it as that either. If I had got this age 8, it probably would have become one of my most precious and loved books. So 3 and a half stars from adult me (I just wanted more facts!) but probably 5 or even 6 stars from 8-year-old me!The illustrations are amazing and I think they do the justice to the real pieces more than pictures would. Each culture has a short description and every item has its own description detailing itself and the culture more. And, to my mind, it is these illustrations rather than the ‘gallery’ structure that really make the book. Old fashioned - if not ‘paint and ink’ than the digital equivalent - and reminiscent of the Victorian explorers colour plates found in natural history museums ('Images of Nature' might just be my favourite gallery in the whole of the Natural History Museum, London). They are enchanting and beautiful in the way that most photo snaps of animals don’t manage (though I do love animal photography and Wildlife Photographer of the Year is the only art exhibition anyone will ever find me in raptures about). They are the main attraction of the book and what makes it stand out from other, similar, children’s encyclopaedias and reference books. Animalium is literally for everyone. Its illustrations are enchanting enough to entertain the imagination of the younger children while its accurately curated texts by Jenny Brown are informative enough to feed the intellectual hunger of the older audience.