Beasts of the Four Nations: Creatures from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra

by John O'Bryan, Bryan Konietzko (Creator), Michael Dante DiMartino (Creator)

Discover the creatures of The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra with this in-depth exploration of the Four Nations’ animal inhabitants!

Part of what everyone loves about the Four Nations is all the strange and wonderful (and sometimes scary!) creatures that inhabit them! From the Air Nomads’ flying bison, to Kyoshi Island’s elephant koi, to the Earth Kingdom’s singing groundhogs and the little purple pentapus, look to this hardcover volume for images and information on Avatar and Korra’s creatures large and small.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

128 pages, Hardcover

First published September 23, 2025

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very lazy excuse for a book text-wise. The entire thing is narrated by what I'm assuming in a 12 year old Aang (Girl, why? He is not an animal expert! Just make up a character to narrate this book or something!), with the occasional cringe side comment from other characters. The art is inconsistent, some pieces are really stunning and others look absolutely rushed. I went to a lot of the artists' pages and felt their art was way better so this was either rushed or delayed significantly. Honestly I felt as though nothing was gained from this that the A:TLA Wiki doesn't already do twice as better, but it scratched my A:TLA itch a bit so two stars it is to the artists and the artists only.

[LB · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book got delayed for 3-4 years before it came out. Originally, it was marketed as some sort of encyclopedia containing information about animals and even the posting on the publisher's website today mentions including animals from the spirit world. However, none of that turns out to be true. Instead, the narration provided is more of an in-universe narration from Aang, which leaves some problems in that a lot of the text is simply referencing events that have happened in the show itself (and maybe some comics) but not really new information. Put simply, this is not the book that was originally advertised.

There were also some instances of timeline or lore inconsistencies. Here are some examples. In the first episodes of Last Airbender, Katara mentions that she used to go otter-penguin sledding as a kid. In the entry for that animal, it mentions that Aang brought otter-penguin sledding to the Water Tribes but that is directly contradicted by the aforementioned first episodes of Last Airbender. Another inconsistency is Aang somehow knowing the lion turtles from Wan's story in the Legend of Korra. Except it was Korra who was told this story in the series, not Aang.

Which brings me to my next point: although it has The Legend of Korra in the subtitle, there isn't that much text for that series in this book. I was hoping to have something a little more of substance from that series so this wouldn't come off as false advertising. For example, the Wolfbats entry (name of a pro-bending team in the Legend of Korra series) is narrated by Aang so there isn't any references to the pro-bending team in that entry. Although there are snippets of extra text from characters in ATLA and TLOK I wouldn't liked some more snippets from the Legend of Korra characters to really justify TLOK in the subtitle. As it stands, there were only TLOK four characters (Korra, Bolin, Meelo, Ikki) with five total small snippets in the entire book. It would've been nice, for example, to add an Asami snippet as well to the Sand Shark entry since both her and Korra see that animal in that series and it's the only instance in the franchise where we see that animal.

Those two stars I give are exclusively for the artwork. The artists have done an amazing job and they deserve credit it for it.

I would only recommend this book if you are an ultra fan who wants to complete their collection or really want to own the artwork here. Overall I found this a dissatisfying entry after such a long wait.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredible artwork. Absolutely gorgeous.

This is written from the point of view of Aang, but I wish it were at least an older version of Aang because I was expecting this to go into a lot more depth. Honestly, it was more of a recap of things we already learned from the shows.

I liked that some of the added snippets from other characters tried to “correct” Aang, but still even those were still pretty much recaps.

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a guide to the animals of the world of Avatar. The artwork is beautiful!

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book, more of an art book than anything else. The art is gorgeous, the information is fun to read but nothing too new and exciting if you know the show. Though I did enjoy that there was some commentary from some characters included.

[Soren Steinfeldt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very low effort book, no information not available outside the show and all the text is little character blurbs that sounds like they were written by ai or a 5 year old. Illustrations are decent.