If the World Were 100 Animals: A Visual Guide to Earth's Amazing Creatures

by Miranda Smith, Aaron Cushley (Illustrator)

Help your child understand the creatures that share our world and how we can protect them with these big ideas expressed through bite-size chunks of information and eye-opening graphics. This fascinating companion to If the World Were 100 People is perfect for home and classroom settings!

With around 20 quintillion animals on Earth, it's impossible to know everything about them all! However, if we shrink that number down to 100, we can picture a global park that lets us learn about our fellow living creatures.

An accessible introduction to our planet's creatures, perfect for fact-hungry animal lovers!

Genres: Science, Picture Books, Nonfiction, Animals, Nature, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

Published July 5, 2022

About the author

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For other authors of this name, see:

Miranda Smith - Suspense


Miranda Smith is a long-standing editor of information books for both children and adults. She has a particular interest in the field of natural history and has written books and articles for children on the subject, including the encyclopedic Living Earth (for Dorling Kindersley).

Reviews

[Tilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

This is the first children's book that I am reviewing as I am now living with my 5 year old nephew so am able to read to him alot! Both me and my nephew are huge animal fans so were really looking forward to this book but sadly it wasn't quite as good as I had hoped.

My main problem with this book is that it is meant to be for age 5 - 8 but it is WAY too complex an idea for a 5 year old to understand. The general idea is that they are using 100 animals to show how the 20 quintillion animals on earth are divided up. My nephew is very smart for his age but he couldn't understand this concept. For instance when it came to seeing 100 pets and how they are split up he said "but there are more than 33 dogs on earth". The idea of percentages just is too much for this age. Also the language used was much too complex for this age range. Words such as "placental", "monotreme" and "inhabitants".
Also there is a page about how plastics are affecting animals and about wildlife extinction. These pages were written in a very "doom and gloom" way which made my nephew a little worried and upset. I think that it also didn't give any ways in which humans can help and that this was the final page meant the book ended on a downer. I understand why this was included and I am all for this kind of education but it wasn't written in the correct way for a 5 year old.

The illustrations were beautiful and we enjoyed talking about the animals and naming as many as we could. As I have worked in animal conservation, it was nice to bond over some of my stories whilst my nephew could look at the animals. Although it may have been nice for more of the lesser known animals to be named.

Overall, the book was not placed in the right age range. It was an interesting read for me as an adult but all my nephew got from it was the animal pictures. There are definitely better animal books out there for this age range.

Please note that I was gifted this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Claire Wrobel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating heartbreaking beautiful important

[Olivia Heithoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about many different types of animals. In the beginning, it talks about how many invertebrates and vertebrates there are if there were just 100 animals on earth. The next page talks about the five types of vertebrates: mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. The next page talks about mammals that are born from a live birth, marsupials, and monotremes ~ mammals who lay eggs. Next, it talks about where wild land mammals live. They live on every continent but Antarctica. After, it talks about how many animals live in the sea ~ 9 are known and 91 are unknown. The next page talks about how many kinds of animals can fly ~ 2 are bats, 4 are birds, and 94 are insects. The page after that talks about how many mammals live in the wild ~ 5 live in the wild, 36 are humans, and 59 live on farms. The next page talks about what types of animals we share our homes with ~ 6 are birds, 33 are dogs, 12 are fish, 23 are cats, and 26 are other animals. The page after that talks about animals that are dangerous to humans ~ 81 are mosquitoes, 11 are snakes, 4 are dogs, 2 are freshwater snails, 1 is a saltwater crocodile, and 1 is a hippopotamus. The next page talks about how many animals have gone extinct ~ 10 types are still living and 90 types are extinct. The page after that talks about which animals are the most endangered ~ 24 birds, 54 are fish, 8 are mammals, 7 are reptiles, and 7 are amphibians. The last page talks about the big questions we can ask ourselves about how to help animal species not go extinct. For example, one question asked: "What can we do to stop the animals' habitats and ecosystems from being destroyed?"

I think this book would be very good for upper elementary and middle school age. It has a lot of color and graphics that go along with each page of animals. I also like how it separates the animals into groups on each page, and then separates those groups so that they end up to 100. This hints at the title which is stating what the world would look like if it only had 100 animals. The ending also asks questions about how we can keep all of these animals safe, and what would happen if we don't. Overall, I think that kids would love this book!

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just as David Smith's If the World Were a Village (2002) for an older audience and Jackie McCann's If the World Were 100 People do, this informative book imagines that Earth's 20 quintillion living creatures are compressed into an easier-to-grasp number--100--and then breaks that number into various categories. Moving from vertebrates and invertebrates to five types of vertebrates and then to three types of mammals, the text offers brief information about each category along with examples and numbers so readers can see just how abundant or rare each creature might be. There are also colorful depictions of where animals live, whether on land, in the sea or flying through the air. Another double-page spread features the animals that live with humans, while yet another one highlights creatures that are extinct (a shocking 90) and those that are not (10). Finally, readers learn about how many animals are endangered and some possible ways to save them. The last two pages are rather bleak as predictions about the state of this planet and its living creatures by 2050, fewer than 30 years away, seem perilous if something doesn't change. The book's design is visually appealing, and its subject matter is certainly important. Caring parents, caregivers, and teachers might want to share some of its pages each day with youngsters in fourth, fifth or sixth grade. One notable aspect of the book is that the sources for the information provided for these various numbers and conjectures are listed in the front matter on the copyright page. The book itself asks several challenging questions about what to do to solve the problems the world will be facing in the next few decades, making it a good choice for a budding ecologist or environmental activist.

[Brooke - TheBrookeList · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the World Were 100 Animals is so clever, and such a helpful visual depiction to get kids thinking! There are 20 billion billion animals on earth! What an astounding number! To help us understand it, Smith makes them representative - meainng, if we used 100 animals to represent them, what would we find? The pages are full of animals (which my kindergartener loved counting) that show how many animals are mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, etc. How many are invertebrates vs. vertebrates? How many can fly? Which ones are wild vs pets or livestock? Some pages are landscape, others are portrait (kids love turning a picture book vertical), and every inch is full of colorful details and tidbits about Earth's amazing creatures. My children were an incredibly captive audience.

Read as a nomination in the nonfiction book award category as a panelist for Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (Cybils Awards).

If there was a kids' choice award, this one would get a big nomination from my elementary kids.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this tool for grasping numbers and patterns, and it's well done, with a progression of statistics that has some coherence. It starts with all animals, then vertebrates, then mammals, etc. Also the text on the page was well considered -- there are the starting explanations and then smaller info blurbs and factoids. So it works for groups or for kids of different attention spans.

The illustrations were well done as well -- the pages are laid out well, so they look good but also convey the information well and it works at various levels -- you can drill down and count all the small pictures and it checks, or just see the groupings to understand the statistics. It's a great introduction to the information as well as how to convey information.

And then it gently slides into action, which is apparently a necessary component to nonfiction these days.

[Read Ribbet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miranda Smith cleverly explains the animal kingdom to the readers by prese3nting statistical information based on the number 100. She defines categories and then tells how many out of 100 ani8mals would be in each of those categories. These range from classification systems to habitats to endangered status. It is a very accessible way to give readers a sense of proportion especially when using numbers to discuss the animal kingdom can be a bit overwhelming. Cushley's illustrations are fairly realistic and add visual support to the information being shared. It would be a good mentor text for structuring a similar informational report. Many scientific terms are defined along the way.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If we were to reduce all of the animals on earth (more than 20 quintillion) to 100, we might be able to understand the population better.
If there were 100 animals in the ocean, 91 would have yet to be discovered and 9 would be known to man.
If there were 100 animals that lived during the history of the earth 90 would be extinct and 10 would be living.
94 of the 100 animals would be invertebrates and 6 would be vertebrates.
The pictures are so well done and the facts are so interesting that I find myself thinking back on this book frequently.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love If the World Were 100 People: A Visual Guide to Our Global Village, which really helps readers (particularly younger readers) visualise how our world is made up and how lucky they are in comparison with most of the world. I found this similar version interesting, but not quite as compelling, just as it is not as important for the readers to have an understanding of the animal world.

[Michele Knott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an interesting concept. If we were to divide up the Earth's animals into different groups, there would be too many animals to really look at. So what if we only look at 100 animals and find different ways of classifying them? And that's the book. It really is interesting to see the different ways these animals are divided up!

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great way to visualize all the animals on Earth. Each spread focuses on a different detail including vertebrates vs. invertebrates, deadly, extinct vs. alive, etc. There are a few facts about different unique animals on each page, such as the Black Mamba being able to go 12 mph. Eek!

[Elaine Fultz, Teacher Librarian, MLS · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books (clarifying and simplifying people's and animals' places in the world) are excellent for opening young folks' eyes to a perspective that is difficult to explain in other nonfiction titles.

[Nicole Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is about 100 different species of animals. I liked it's silly illustrations. I also liked how it was so knowledgeable and fun to read.

Review by Merci, a 5th grader

[Sandy Brehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

These "If _______ were 100" titles are fascinating and helpful in allowing younger audiences to grasp distributions, diversity, and even the still-unknown of our wide wonderful world.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divides the world’s animals into percentage categories. Ie. 94 out of 100 flying animals are insects, 2 are bats, 4 are birds. 91 creatures of the sea are unknown only 9 are known.

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book to teach children about biodiversity and also about math and logic.

Miranda Smith wrote the book with Aaron Cushley as the illustrator. Every two pages (open recto and verso pages) presents a question about animals that is answered by ratios.

For example, "How many mammals still live in the wild?" Only 5:100. 36:100 are humans and 59:100 live on farms. These two pages have images of wild animals, people, and domesticated animals such as dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep, goats, working animals (such as horses, oxen, donkeys, and sheepdogs), and animals raised for their fur (small ones such as a rabbit and large ones such as a llama).

Some of the pages overtly attend to issues of biodiversity such as two open pages about instinct animals and two open pages about animals who are most in danger.

The last two open pages contain six paragraphs asking critical thinking questions about life on earth with projections about the fate of animals by 2050. Here is part of one of these paragraphs: "One half of all bat species could be extinct by 2050. More than 500 plant species, including banana, guava, and mango, rely on bats to pollinate their flowers, spread seeds, and control insects." Drawings of two bats are adjacent to this paragraph.

The very last sentence of the book asks, "Wouldn't it be great if we could stop more animals from becoming instinct like the dodo?" And there is a tiny drawing of a dodo next to that sentence.

I can see young readers ages 9 to 12 reading this book independently. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, myself! I just wish there were some back matter for parents, teachers, and librarians to help them create more context for this book. But I suppose adults can do that on their own.

[Leen Liefsoens · Rating 4 out of 5]

De serie 'Als er 100 waren' geeft op een makkelijke manier inzicht in de wereld van mensen en dieren. De teksten zijn helder maar vergeet ook niet om goed naar de infographics te kijken, want die geven nog meer details. De boeken eindigen met een opsomming van de grote vragen - wat er in de toekomst gebeurt met de 100, hoe de verhoudingen veranderen en welke effecten dat zal hebben en geeft ook al een richting aan waarin we de antwoorden moeten vinden. Bevatten levenslessen voor nieuwsgierigen, wel blijven (terug)kijken.