Review: Wilderness: Earth's Amazing Habitats, by Mia Cassany and Marcos Navarro

Abstract

This very neat book is one part biodiversity mixed with one part geography. While the focus of the brief written bits is on describing specific habitats, the imagery on the pages captures a glimpse of the unique life, plant and animal, that can be found in each. The book is neither long nor wordy, but it is a great way to introduce kids to specific environments that they likely have not heard of. While many books on habitat highlight very general places or categories of places, this book takes its exploration to a much deeper level, focusing on places such as Niokolo-Koba National Park (Senegal), the Qinling Mountains (China), the Rainbow Forest (Hawaii), and the rainforest of Madagascar. While the focus is mostly on the places, with beautiful drawings representing each, readers are encouraged to learn more in the form of a creature index at the back of the book, which returns to each of the pages to introduce the plant and animal life shown for each location with a brief description and name.