This large board book groups pictures of animal by continent or part of the world, beginning with the Arctic and continuing on to North America (Canada), Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America, North America (Southwestern USA), and finally, under the ocean surface. The Last page spread has a map of the world with continents labeled so that children can see where the animals live that they have been viewing.

The pictures of the animals fall somewhere between cartoonish and realistic. There’s probably enough characteristic features that children might be able to recognize the various animals at the zoo or in their natural habitat, but the illustrations are still fairly small and stylized. And for some reason, perhaps to create interest, each two page spread has a picture or two of mice dressed in clothes and doing things like painting a picture or riding a camel or sunbathing. The only words in this book, originally published in German, are the English animal names printed under each animal picture and a few physical features that arenalso labeled, such as glacier, desert, savannah, and oddly enough, “chainsaw”, “garbage”, and “ant hill”?

Little children and even older animal lovers would probably enjoy this Richard Scarry-type word book, but I can tell you from experience that adults who are anything like me will tire quickly of repeating the names of the animals over and over again. With no narrative or story, the book is only of limited interest to the adult reader—which makes it a problematic book to have in the house. Usborne sells a lot of these word books, too, and I hated them when my children were little. My preschoolers, who weren’t reading for themselves, kept wanting me to “read” the books to them. But without a story, I was bored stiff.

Still The Big Book of Animals of the World might keep your children busy on a rainy day, or you might be a different kind of parent/teacher/reader than I am. Enter at your own risk.