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Wild Animals Of The North h/c


Wild Animals Of The North h/c Wild Animals Of The North h/c Wild Animals Of The North h/c Wild Animals Of The North h/c

Wild Animals Of The North h/c back

Dieter Braun

Price: 
£20.00

Page 45 Review by Stephen

You can tell that these animals are all from the North because it tends to be snowing, ice features fairly prominently in their habitat, and several are found walking whippets.

100% class through and through, this deliriously seductive all-ages art book has bugger all to do with comics but I am so far past caring because beauty.

Recommended to fans of Brrémaud & Bertolucci's LOVE: TIGER and LOVE: FOX, the paper stock is thick and matt and the hardcover itself roams free from the fetters of any unsightly insta-rip dust jacket, thus making it ideal for school libraries.

As a kid myself I own that my idea of nature-book heaven would have been one illustrated by KINGDOM COME's Alex Ross but as a big kid now this more stylised approach with elements of Jonathan Edwards lights my fire far, far more. The forms are bigger and bolder for their blocked-out beauty and I strongly suspect that any family acquiring this educational excellence will discover their young ones equipping themselves with paper, pencil and paint in no time in order to emulate its awe.

Featured creatures come with a paragraph which is far from predictable, eschewing cold stats in favour of something more akin to storytelling, bringing each animal's individuality alive.

Snow leopard:

"A snow leopard never roars." Already I am surprised. I never knew that.

"Its call is drawn-out howl which - depending on the direction of the wind - can be mistaken for the cry of the yeti." I've never heard a yeti, so I'm not sure what that means.

"Because it's so shy and rare, the Kyrgyz people also call it the 'ghost of the mountain'. Its long busy tail gives this avid climber the necessary counterbalance it requires for scaling the mountainside. When resting, it uses its tail to protect itself from the cold by curling it around itself and covering its nose. It is said to jump over 15-metre crevasses - and even if the crevasse were a few centimetres shorter, this cat would still be the world champion long-jumper of all mammals."

See? Instantly memorable even if you have the attention span of a five-year-old that's just washed down a dozen packets of Tang-Fastics with five fizzy litres of teeth-melting pop-u-like.

Other birds, amphibians and mammals, alas, come with little more than a name but maybe you can make your own entry up for Mountain Goats which I've seen abseiling down cliffs without ropes. I've also spotted them walking along sheer drops, halfway up on what must be three-millimetre-thick ledges, suggesting that each and every one was once bitten by a radioactive spider.

I know my natural science!
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