As Large As Life

by Jonny Marx, Sandhya Prabhat

26 habitats to explore, featuring more than 250 animals. Did you know that a sword-billed hummingbird has a beak longer than its body, that a giant anteater's tongue can delve two feet into a termite mound in pursuit of food, or that a lion's mane jellyfish can grow tentacles as long as three buses? See how the most sublime animals on the planet size up and compare them all in one go using the enormous fold-out chart at the back of the book.

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

64 pages, Hardcover

Published October 14, 2021

About the author

Jonny Marx lives in London, where he works as a children's book editor and author.

From a compendium of mythical monsters and a chronology of prehistoric creatures, to books about crime capers, lost unicorns, incredible human beings and humankind, Jonny has worked on more than 60 titles (and counting!).

Reviews

[Scottsdale Public Library]

This is a fascinating nonfiction picture book with contemporary illustrations. Information is in two to three sentence blurbs for each animal which have been grouped by region (e.g. "The Black Forest") or type (e.g. "Lounging Lizards"). It also visually compares creatures to humans in scale (very conceptually). It would be a great one for elementary education, especially for animal or habitat assignments. I can also see it being used as a model or assignment guide for unit studies for upper grades too. Or a favorite read and re-read for animal lovers. Readers may also enjoy Actual Size by Steve Jenkins, The Wonder Garden by Kristjana Willams, or many of the other beautiful illustrated or photographic guide books in our 590 J Non-Fiction section! Happy exploring. -Alexis S.

[✰ᴢᴏᴇ✰ (keefe’s version)]

i can feel my brain growing

[Barbara]

With engaging text and resplendent illustrations that simply jump off the pages, bringing these animals to life, this oversize book will have readers oh-ing and ah-ing over the images. Some of the pages need to be read horizontally, and others need to be turned to be read vertically. However someone reads the pages though, he/she/they will come away from the book filled with awe at the incredible diversity of life on this planet since more than 250 animals are depicted. And the illustrations are large so that they do justice to the creatures, even the very tiny ones such as a hummingbird or a locust as well as those enormous ones such as a Komodo dragon or a humpback whale. Snippets of information about each species accompany the illustrations, often cleverly displayed in an eye-catching way; for instance, the description of a giraffe is placed along its neck, giving readers' eyes some variety in examining the text. In many cases, the animals have been grouped according to habitat, but in a few cases, they have been collected according to characteristics such as having wings or being lizards ("Lounging Lizards" is the title of those two pages.) While it might seem that the book contains a lot of information, the book design doesn't make it feel overwhelming, and the colors used for the background and animals hold readers' attention. It is possible to read the whole book in one gulp, but it's also perfectly fine to read it in sections or small bites, savoring the experience of acknowledging this wonderful world where such creatures thrive, often without our having a clue of their existence. This one is a good addition to a science classroom library since it's sure to hold readers' attention and encourage curiosity to learn more.

[The Silvan Reverie | Sarah Street]

A fascinating large-format book for animal-loving children. This nonfiction volume, aimed at children 7-13 year olds is packed-full of pages featuring a LOT of animals. The pages are organized by biome and type of animal. Each page spread features illustrations of animals and a few sentence "fun fact" detail on each animal. It's beautiful and engaging and one to browse, not necessarily read cover-to-cover.

Some hesitations I have: (1) there is a lot of information here and perhaps an index would be helpful for children to sift through and search for specific favorite animals. (2) for the 7-13 year old age group, I am not totally convinced that just one sentence on each animal is enough detail.

The illustrations are vibrant and fun -- certainly the presentation of this book will invite children in to learn more.

***Note: I was given a review copy of this book via Publisher's Spotlight. Opinions are my own.

[Lisa]

26 different habitats for the reader to explore, each with a number of its resident animals illustrated with a most interesting fact included.

I was so engaged! Because of the nature of the book, it can be opened on any page and perused. I learned so many new things! The only drawback, for my library, is the fact that the book is oversized - at 13" tall it won't fit on my shelves where it belongs unless it's placed on its side. Includes a table of contents.

Cross posted to http://kissthebookjr.blogspot.com

[Erin Buhr]

AS LARGE AS LIFE is a nonfiction book that focuses the size of animals relative to humans. As you turn the page, you jump from one ecosystem to another. The Black Forest to the Galapagos. The Himalayas to the Coral Reef. Each page has a combination of facts about an assortment of animals. My favorite part of this book is the rich illustrations. The colors are bold and bright and draw you into each scene.

[A.]

The bold illustrations and snippets of text in this oversized informational picture book should lend it solid shelf appeal. I wish there had been some consistency in the scale, for frame of reference. Perhaps pair it with Actual Size for reference?

[Meredith]

A very cool, beautifully illustrated book that will be of great interest to any animal loving child and many animal loving adults. There were many animals in this book that I had never heard of, and others that were already some of my favorites.

[S46354595]

I love learning more about nature and the critters that live in it. I learned about so many new critters!

[Olivia]

See my full review here: https://www.yabookscentral.com/kidsno...

AS LARGE AS LIFE is an interesting collection of animals and habitats in a beautifully oversized book. The illustrations here are really cool, with plenty of color and a large diversity of animals pictured. While some facts are about the size of the animal, others are random facts. The end includes a fold-out page featuring some of the animals shown in scale to each other and a person.

What I loved: The illustrations here are really vivid and colorful, and I loved just looking through them. The facts are also intriguing, and I particularly enjoyed the size-related facts that bring to life how large (or small) some animals are. Other facts add to the fun of reading, and the inclusion of different habitats was also interesting. The fold-out at the end was really cool to look at, and it's so interesting to see how very big some animals (whales) are!

What left me wanting more: It was not entirely clear to me how the scaling was done on the inner pages, and so we don't get all those cool size facts I was expecting. Other random facts were cool, but they are given in short sentences, so they also did not include a lot of detail or information. This was more of a book to browse than to really get into and learn from. The categories also seemed a bit randomly gathered, as there's not a clear theme to the organization, but still interesting to look through.

Final verdict: AS LARGE AS LIFE is an intriguing book about animal size with a large diversity of animals and bugs pictured in vivid detail. Would recommend for older elementary school aged readers who love to get quick facts about animals.

Please note that I received a review copy. All opinions are my own.