In this book full of colorful areas, we discover the nature of the bird's point of view, through a hot air balloon trip: from the plains of Africa to the Arctic, odds of the islands to China... It's a little tour of the world!

We find in each double page information about the nature and the residents of these environments. Below each landscape, there is a band that shows all the species presented, like a search-and-find.

I like the ecological message, which is clearly stated in the last double page. After having seen a whole section of the beauty of nature through the vision of the birds of the world, the author reminds us that the balance is fragile and that we are destroying more and more these ecosystems. All this with simple words easily assimilated, even for the youngest.

In short, a little favorite, which I would like to have a lot in physical version, to introduce this book to the children of my entourage!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

What child doesn't love a book that includes animals? My children love reading about them and nature as well. so this book was a hit in our house!

I received an electronic ARC from Quarto Publishing Group through NetGalley.
Absolutely gorgeous cover. Open the book fully to appreciate the wrap around.
Realistic illustrations capture the various areas on earth as the reader takes a hot air balloon ride around the world. The text is informative and offers a glimpse at each life cycle area.
Easy to read captions and blurbs for upper elementary readers.

This educational book is brimming with interesting information about different parts of the world. The reader is presented with a birds-eye view of incredible landscapes including the Florida Everglades, outback Australia, and The Himalayas. Colourful illustrations accompany the text and are very detailed especially with the wildlife and plant life. Each page is eye-catching and easy to get lost in. The facts are interesting and I particularly liked the final page which mentions the fragility of earth and how landscapes are rapidly changing. A big part of this change is down to human damage, and although the book doesn't heavily underline this statement, there is hope that it will inspire children to love and respect the earth and their environment.

My only criticism is that the 'Flying the world' map was slightly confusing for me (as an adult). The text didn't always link to the pictures so I think this could be modified to make it more obvious. Perhaps number the text to coincide with the numbers on the pictures.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

<i>Bird's Eye View</i> by John Farndon and illustrated by Paul Boston is another of those incredibly detailed and informative children's books that I had initially thought would be a lot more geared toward younger kids, but really fits the pre-teen age group much better. It's pretty exceptional in a lot of ways, but not the sort of book that you really read once and leave feeling as though you remember all the new things you were taught. <i>Bird's Eye View </i>is a dense book for children who are interested in learning about the world.

It's very much focused on an environmental science perspective, moving all across the world to teach about the landforms we've got on our planet and all the animals who live within it. There's a lot of text to this book, but the illustrations are also immense and beautiful. Adult or child, you definitely have the opportunity to leave this book feeling as though you've learned something. And, in its own way, it reminded me somewhat of a zoo. Now, that's a vague comparison, of course. But the book does do an incredible job giving an overview of certain animals and their habitats.

All in all, <i>Bird's Eye View</i> is quite an impressive book and a worthwhile educational read. It has a lot of merits and is definitely a book you don't want to simply glance at and leave behind. I, for one, really appreciated the opportunity to read it. In so many ways, this book is perfect for libraries and it is perfect for schools.

<i>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

An eye-catching book, but one that's a little too 'dotty' for me. The thing consists of some very pleasant and interesting dioramas, taken from a long way up in the atmosphere, so we look down over the world, from a single coral atoll to great swathes of Central Asia. So we get information of how rocks are formed, how islands grow and suchlike, but to me the text was a slightly awkward mix of the general (along the lines of 'this is what life is like on this terrain') and the specific (ie 'that's Astana in the background, by the way'). The pages that look the best, the huge four-panel fold-out images, suffered the most here, in that they showed somewhat arbitrary slices of the earth's surface. Oh, and that 'dotty' comment – it was never as bad as the unreadable introductory map, but it did suffer from being a patchy script, with bits here and there that were quite easy to read in the wrong order. And if you want to convey the different areas of a mountain via its flora and fauna, why have the mountain pointing one way (up) and the writing flowing in the opposite direction? Still, five marks to the artist, and the book does more or less achieve what it set out to do.

A Bird’s Eye View: the Natural World is a colourful and informatively book for children and adults alike. A birds eye view of our world: landscapes, animals and how things work.

I love this book. It was crammed full of information that was easy to understand and presented in a fun way.

My 17 month old son even sat through my reading it because the illustrations were so colourful.

If you want to learn about the world, it can be hard to find a children's book with just the right kind of graphics that are eye-catching without being unrealistic. I think Bird's Eye View offers just the right balance of engaging, colorful content that closely matches reality. Much like a high quality animated film.

I loved the opening double spread of the whole world. This serves as sort of an illustrated Table of Contents offering the child a glimpse of the order their journey around the world will take. I love that there is at least one stop for each of the inhabited continents (sorry, Antarctica, you didn't make the cut).

Each of the 12 stops include a double page spread with tibits of information sprinkled around the page. There is no particular order one needs to read the information on the page and younger children may just enjoy looking at the pictures. Along the bottom of the page, there is a key of images to look for on that page. That's a great way for non-readers to engage with the book and also to draw ones attention over the whole page, noticing things that may otherwise have been missed.

The scope and breadth of all the beauty on our planet Earth are magnificently displayed throughout each page of this book. The occasional references to how man has marred the planet will undoubtedly please environmentalists and references to the earth's age will please evolutionists. For parente, who disagree, the book provides opportunities to discuss how their world view differs with the author's.

The book could also be the springboard for some discussion with older readers about how subtle messages are woven into everything we read and the importance of using discernment and evaulating everything one reads. While I disagreed with some of the content, I believe there is still much to recommend in this book and think it provides a valuable way to introduce geography and geology to young readers.

Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of Bird's Eye View from NetGalley for the purpose of reviewing. No other compensation was received.

This beautifully formatted book takes readers on a trip around the world, giving us a bird’s eye view of land, water, plants and animals in a variety of environments. A map at the beginning of the book indicates the route that will be followed. The end of the book reminds readers of the human impact on the environment. This is a great book for browsing, and one to return to again and again, as it is very detailed. A treat for young geographers, environmentalists, and animal and plant lovers. This book offers so much to see and learn! to see and learn. I found the text and illustrations both interesting and informative.

As soon as I saw the cover for Bird's Eye View, The Natural World, I knew I had to request it. Animals and nature has to be my daughter's number one topic of choice, so a chance to look at both is a win-win.

The illustrations were gorgeous as they depicted the area of the world (from a bird's eye view, haha) that was being focused on, it's habitat, the animals that lived there and the weather that impacted that area. I learned about islands off the coast of Australia that I never knew existed before!

I cannot wait to buy this book as the fold out pictures will be even better to look at in person (versus a computer screen.) Definitely get this for any little person who loves to explore! I would say the best age range would be 6-10.

Thanks to Netgalley, Quarto Publishing Group - words & pictures and John Farndon for the opportunity to read this book and provide an honest review.

Review Date: 6/20/19
Publication Date: 7/16/19

ARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher.

Unlike other reviewers, I don't mind the illustrative depictions of wild animals over photos. Not every non fiction book needs to be photographic and a non fiction book doesn't necessitate photos to be a teaching tool. Here, I found this "birds eye view" of the various biomes in the world to be colorful, eye catching and packed with detail. Perhaps too much detail, as often I had to squint in order to make out everything. At times, the book feels like an animal version of eye spy and the black text sometimes gets lost in the mix. Other than that, I found the book to be informative and well organized, just the type of survey book I'd have checked out as a kid. It is a good leaping point for young readers to then want to check out other non fiction on animals.

Rating: 3.5/5