World Record Animals

by Oldřich Růžička

Superheroes, record holders, and fascinating facts from the animal kingdom! Welcome to our animal Olympics! The animal world has almost infinite variety. Many of its creatures have strengths similar to superheroes. The world’s fastest animals can move at the speed of a race car; one small creature has the strength of a trained weightlifter; the world’s strongest animal can lift many times its own weight; and the longest-lived animal survives for several hundred years. Fastest, slowest, strongest, largest, smallest, longest living, furthest jumping, most dangerous, most beautiful, ugliest, deepest diving—these and many other record holders from the animal kingdom fill this book with unexpected, fascinating facts.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals

32 pages, Hardcover

Published May 25, 2021

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it's true that humans are capable of amazing feats and have special abilities that other animals don't possess, many animals can outclass humans in various ways. This oversize book highlights these record-holders in various categories. Middle grade readers will enjoy this information and then sharing it with others as the images and text point to animals with great speed as well as those that move v-e-r-y--s-l-o-w-l-y. The text compares the size of animals, focusing on those that are the largest and those that are the smallest. While it's neat to gaze at the creatures deemed the most attractive, there is also some appeal in those that many consider to be ugly, including the often-maligned pink blobfish and the aye-aye. Perhaps I'm just strange, but I don't find these animals all that unattractive. This browsable book is a good introduction to the animal kingdom with just enough information provided to prompt curiosity to learn more. But don't be surprised if readers decide to read the whole thing in one session. It does a fine job of reminding humans that we aren't superior in a lot of areas, and that we must take a back seat to animals in many cases.

[J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Both my kid and I weren't a fan of this book and the fact that the subjects for each category aren't (for example) the five fastest animals, but the fastest and then some random animals for comparison, without outlining this. The fact that the blurbs about each different animal aren't in any order on each page was also frustrating enough that we didn't finish the book. There were also some factual inaccuracies within the first few pages.