I’m secretly eight years old inside. I love fascinating animal and science stuff, especially cool, weird, and gross facts. Readers of my children’s books see this passion in action. My best-selling and award-winning nonfiction animal books have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide since 2000. I focus particularly on reaching reluctant, struggling, and English-language-learning readers by packing my books with lots of action and high-interest topics to keep them turning pages. I’m recommending these top-five narrative nonfiction animal books for adults because these authors have influenced my research and thinking—and because they’re terrific stories!
Elephants are my favorite animals—for their size and beauty, innate intelligence, and matriarchal structure.
Do you love them too? If so, or even if you just want to know more about these utterly unique creatures and many more, you’ll want to read this insightful book. Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason was a forerunner in writing about socioemotional studies of animal behavior for lay readers.
This was the first nonfiction book I read years ago on this topic, and it remains the one that changed my worldview and approach to animal research, appreciation, and understanding.
For more than 100 years, scientists have denied that animals experience emotions, yet this remarkable and groundbreaking book proves what animal-lovers have known to be true: wolves, tigers, giraffes, elephants and many other creatures exhibit all kinds of feelings - hope, fear, shame, love, compassion. From Ola, the irritable whale, to Toto, the chimpanzee who nursed his owner back to health, this book collects together for the first time a vast range of case histories which show the extraordinary complexity of the animal world, and the tumult of emotions that govern it.
I'm a world-class underwater explorer, writer, photographer, speaker,
and filmmaker. A pioneer of technical rebreather diving, I have led expeditions
into icebergs in Antarctica, volcanic lava tubes, and submerged caves
worldwide. As a child, these fanciful places were just a part of my wildest
dreams. The Aquanaut tells the story of how I turned my imaginative journeys
into reality and became a celebrated underwater explorer.
When Anne Innis Dagg was a little girl, she longed to study giraffes in
Africa. Many obstacles including gender discrimination stood in her way, so she
hide her female identity to get a job and then traveled to Africa on her own.
Anne fulfilled her dream and became the world's leading scientific expert on
giraffes, inspiring the next generation of women scientists to pursue their
dreams.
When Anne Innis Dagg saw her first giraffe in a zoo she was entranced. So much so that a love for giraffes shaped her whole life. She decided at a young age that she would one day travel from her home in Canada to study giraffes in their natural environment in Africa.
After overcoming obstacles based on her gender, Anne succeeded in fulfilling her dream in 1956 and became the world's leading scientific expert on giraffes.
In The Girl Who Loved Giraffes, Kathy Stinson and Francois Thisdale have created a beautiful picture book that captures the dramatic story of Anne's…
I feel passionate about the topic of friendship because I haven’t been a great friend to all the people that have mattered to me. I’ve learned the value of friendship by making a lot of mistakes. I’m very lucky to be in my 40’s, have an amazing family, and still have a few individuals that I’ve known my entire adult life, who I still talk to on a regular basis. These people are really good friends, because, to be honest, they’ve seen me at my worst, and still love me. I consider myself a wealthy man, in no small part because of my friends.
The
fact that I’ve read this book to my son nearly every night for the past year
and am not sick of it yet is a testament to how charming it is. This book is
about a group of friends and one of them, Giraffe, is very grumpy. The friends
take turns in trying, then failing, to cheer him up, until finally they all
become sad and it’s up to Giraffe to cheer up his friends. The story is a great
reminder that our emotions are not just ours. They’re contagious and affect
those we love most. Also, if I had to pick a book to represent my son, who
usually has a grumpy look on his face, this would be the one!
You loved Will Bear Share?, Will Sheep Sleep?, and Will Ladybug Hug?. Now only one question remains: Will Giraffe Laugh?
One giraffe.One bad mood.One timeless question: Will Giraffe Laugh?Meet Giraffe. Giraffe loves to laugh, but today is different. Giraffe is cranky! All of Giraffe's friends want to cheer him up . . . but is laughter the best medicine for such a grumpy guy? Find out in this surprising and memorable storybook all about friendship, feelings, grumpiness, and of course, laughter!A fresh and funny new book in creative talent Hilary Leung's memorable series of animal question stories all about preschool…
I was a girl who looked under rocks. Besides caring about crawling things and forests, I liked to read and write about history, which became the passion I followed into college and a career. No regrets, but I sometimes wonder what might have become of me if an interest in science was more encouraged and I was nudged past my fear of math.
There’s plenty to count on the pages, but this book soars by stressing the repetition of events in the lifetimes of spiders, snakes, kangaroos, and other animals. The word “amazing” in the title sets a bar that’s met as we learn that a woodpecker will drill thirty holes in trees. A giraffe will sport 200 spots. And there’s much more for eager readers to count.
In one lifetime, a caribou will shed 10 sets of antlers, a woodpecker will drill 30 roosting holes, a giraffe will wear 200 spots, a seahorse will birth 1,000 babies. Count each one and many more while learning about the wondrous things that can happen in just one lifetime. This extraordinary book collects animal information not available anywhere else-and shows all 30 roosting holes, all 200 spots, and, yes!, all 1,000 baby seahorses in eye-catching illustrations. A book about picturing numbers and considering the endlessly fascinating lives all around us, Lifetime is sure to delight young nature lovers.
As a parent, a former educator, and a children’s museum administrator, my passions have always centered around children and encouraging them to believe in themselves. I wrote my book to empower my own grandchildren with a growth mindset, which, in simple terms, means to believe in our own abilities, accept challenges, learn from our mistakes, and persevere. It is the belief that our abilities and talents are malleable as opposed to the view that we are either good at something or we are not. Adapting a growth mindset has been valuable in my own life, as well – it’s not just for kids. Please take a look at these books to give yourself and the kids in your life a healthy new perspective.
Giraffes Can't Dance has stayed with me since my first reading. The enchanting rhythm and rhyme, along with the truth and silliness of Gerald’s experiences, are universal - every child and adult can relate to his disappointment. Learning to keep going and embrace his own strengths is a valuable gift that we all need to learn.
Gerald was a tall giraffe whose neck was long and slim, But his knees were awfully bandy and his legs were rather thin . . .
Gerald the giraffe longs to go to the great Jungle Dance, but how can he join in when he doesn't know how to tango or two-step? Everyone knows that giraffes can't dance . . . or can they?
A funny, touching and triumphant story about being yourself and finding your own tune, with joyful illustrations from Guy Parker Rees. This chunky board book edition is perfect for little hands.
My name is James Gurney and I've been a professional illustrator for National Geographic and Scientific American for over 40 years. Although I went to art school, everything I know about drawing and painting comes from studying art instruction books, and from sketching directly from nature. I'm best known for writing and illustrating the New York Times bestselling Dinotopia book series, published in 32 countries and 18 languages. I designed 15 dinosaur stamps for USPS and a set of five dinosaur stamps for Australia Post. My originals have been shown in over 35 solo museum exhibitions. My book Color and Light has sold over 200k copies and was Amazon's #1 bestselling book on painting for over a year.
Disney animator Ken Hultgren shares an approach to drawing animals that emphasizes the unique characteristics of all the major types of mammals. His style features action poses ranging from straight to cartoony. His pen-and-ink drawings are usually accompanied by a skeletal analysis to help students see the hidden structure. He never loses sight of the lines of action flowing through a pose, something that both realist painters and cartoonists can benefit from.
"You'll learn everything there is to learn about drawing animals." — Collectors' Corner This thoughtful and incisive guidebook, written by a former animator for Walt Disney Studios, will help artists at many skill levels improve their ability to draw a wide variety of animal forms both realistically and as caricatures. You'll learn why the author considers construction, action analysis, and caricature all-important for a clear understanding of animal anatomy and movement. You'll also benefit from Mr. Hultgren's expert advice and tips on catching the essential movement and character of animals and avoiding the stiff, wooden poses that are the frequent…
I love a book that teaches me something - who knew two giraffes crossing the Atlantic in 1938 en route to the San Diego Zoo were tossed overboard in a hurricane? This story comes alive through the vivid main characters - our narrator Woodrow Wilson Nickel (a young man orphaned just as the story begins), the old man with a mysterious past and a heart of gold, an intrepid female photojournalist (Augusta "Auggie" aka "Red") reaching for a goal beyond any woman of her time, and of course, the two amazing giraffes. Every chapter is a new thrill as Woody and the old man fight against thieves and flash floods on their journey to deliver the two gentle giants. Everyone's motives are both honorable and questionable at the same time, which makes the story unpredictable and intense. I loved the undercurrent of a coming-of-age love story that flows beautifully between…
An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.
"Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes..."
Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.
It's 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day…
Until I did my own animal-accompanied journey with Mollie and Peggy in 1984, my only association with animals on the trail was inadvertently with a collection of cockroaches in my backpack. It was when Bradt decided to add to their anthologies with a collection of stories about travelling with animals in 2018, Beastly Journeys, that I was able to read a wide variety of books on the topic. A delightful exercise!
I discovered this fascinating and extraordinary story when I was researching tales about travelling with animals for Beastly Journeys. Unlike the other four books in my list, this one has the animal as the central character. And what an animal! Zarafa was captured as a calf in what is now Ethiopia in a plan to cement relationships between the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt and Charles V of France. The year was 1826 and a giraffe had never before been seen in France. Zarafa did the first part of her journey strapped to the back on a camel, and then – surely more comfortably – down the Nile and across the Mediterranean on a brigantine.
A hole was cut in the deck which allowed Zarafa to travel with her body in the hold, while her head and neck enjoyed the human company on deck. From Marseille she was walked, with…
In October 1826, a ship arrived at Marseille carrying the first giraffe ever seen in France. A royal offering from Muhammad Ali, Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, to King Charles X, she had already traveled 2,000 miles down the Nile to Alexandria, from where she had sailed across the Mediterranean standing in the hold, her long neck and head protruding through a hole cut in the deck. In the spring of 1827, after wintering in Marseille, she was carefully walked 550 miles to Paris to the delight of thousands of onlookers.
The viceroy's tribute was politically motivated: He commanded the Turkish…
The rhymes in this book are fun and memorable, and my son loves all the sound effects. He finds the story exciting but there’s a nice, calming down section at the end that he understands to signal bedtime.
The illustrations are a riot of color and have small details that make looking at every page interesting for him.
Join ten cheeky monkeys for lots of jungle fun in this rhyming counting adventure!
Follow the ten little monkeys as they swing through the jungle, getting up to all sorts of mischief! On the way you'll meet all your favourite wild animals: elephants, lions, giraffes, meerkats and more!
Read the bouncy rhyming story and count from ten to one and back again, as the little monkeys disappear then reappear. Spot and count the details on each page, and join in with the read-aloud animal sounds. ROAAAAR!
Part traditional counting rhyme, part fun-filled story, Ten Little Monkeys is perfect for sharing.…
When I was in middle school, I’d spend much of my time in class daydreaming. Imagining myself in, say, a debate with someone I disagree with and going through a litany of scenarios where I’d try to convince that other person to change their mind. It’s a lot of fun. (My teachers would likely disagree.) When I grew older, I did more of that on my daily walks, and then about 11 years ago, I decided to start writing about creative ways to teach someone something they’re vehemently opposed to or just ambivalent about. I’ve published four books since then on this topic.
I understand better by sketching things on paper. I couldn’t get abstract ideas first go, I had to draw them out. Someone on the Internet recommended that I get ahold of this book, and I’m glad I did.
It’s an encyclopedia of facts, but all explained using relative magnitudes. So instead of telling me a giraffe is this tall, I get to see it relative to a horse. I love that way of teaching.
