Following on from the super popular World’s Most Pointless Animals, Phillip Bunting is back bringing ridiculous animals to the spotlight. ‘Ridiculous’ seems to be a subjective term, as ‘I’ don’t think all of the animals in the are book are ridiculous, like the Siamese Fighting Fish or the Bee Hummingbird…I do however find the Peacock Mantis Shrimp slightly ridiculous, the Tardigrade that I had never heard of…and the Zombie Snails maybe more disgusting than ridiculous to me. Super accessible, with lots of labels, a paragraph on each creature as well as the Latin names for each (even if they are crossed out and changed to a more humerous version) this book is a perfect blend of humour and facts.

My son and I really enjoyed this book! We were both surprised and intrigued! It was knowledgeable and kept my kiddo engaged. Very interesting! Highly recommend.

What a fun book! Each unusual animal has a cute cartoonish illustration with humorous labels, a brief summary of the animal and it’s adaptation, and it’s scientific name (cleverly replaced with something a bit funnier).

This book is perfect to middle-upper elementary students. It is a great mix of educational and humorous that kids will love! Highly recommend!

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for the advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review

My son absolutely loved this, he spent over an hour looking at the pictures and talking about which animals were his favourite. The illustrations are adorable, all the information is very child friendly, and it introduced him to a number of animals he hadn’t heard of. I would absolutely recommend this book to parents with children around 7-10 years old

I love it when a book is educational, and also so much fun. This book is that indeed, but not just for kids, the parents and teachers will get a kick out of learning some unknown facts to them as well. For example the first animal I didn't know certain truths about, are the peacocks. For instance, I had no idea they are also known as the Indian peafowl, and are the national bird of India. And not only that, I also didn't know they are also referenced as disco chickens. So just like that, in the first few pages I was already learning something new. The kids will be so entertained they won't even realize how much they're learning, and the parents will love that they're learning while having so much fun. So all in all I'm giving The World's Most Ridiculous Animals 4 and 1/2 stars, because making education so much fun, always makes you a Winner!

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for this free ARC,
The review and opinions are solely my own.

I devoured this in one sitting! Having recently taught a writing unit about animals, I wish I'd had access to this to inspire my children. The graphics are vibrant and attractive. The information is given in short chunks, perfect for those growing in confidence as independent readers. I'm hoping to purchase a copy for our school library and I'm confident the children will enjoy it as much as I have.

We loved this book! We learned all about the World’s Most Ridiculous/Marvelous Animals. Some we knew/loved already and some we had never heard of before. It has such great illustrations and funny labels. You can sit down and read about a few animals or all the animals.

Thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this book.

I thought of it as a book to grow up with. Some of the humor is definitely of the bodily function sort, but the information (except for the fun twist on naming things) is solid enough for anyone. Definitely a hilarious collection of zoological lessons that are illustrated in brilliant colors and closely resemble the real deal. We laughed our sox off while reading it!
Every public and school library needs a copy as well as the usual gifting!
I requested and received a free temporary e-book on Adobe Digital Editions from Quarto Publishing Group/Frances Lincoln Children's Books/Happy Yak via NetGalley. Thank you!

The funniest animal reference book you'll ever come across.

The World's Most Ridiculous Animals by Philip Bunting is exactly that. Its a mixture of fact and comedy with adorable drawings and comical annotations (Can't pick up wifi, susceptible to sunburn, A hairdressers worst nightmare etc).
Its complete genius. It has this comical ability to almost trick children into learning interesting (and funny) facts about a variety of unusual animals due to it being so engaging.
My seven year old could not stop laughing.

The layout of this book is fantastic. Bite sized colour blocked segments revolving around a core illustration making it easy to read. The 'child like' font changes for the funny parts give it a real interactive and engaging feel.

This book is well thought out, much longer than I imagined and absolutely hilarious.

I was gifted a digital copy of The World's Most Ridiculous Animals by Philip Bunting in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The World's Most Ridiculous Animals by Philip Bunting is the second book in a series. The first was The World's Most Pointless Animals, which came out last summer. They do not need to be read as a series, but if you like the style, humor, and format of one you should go check out the other. It is currently scheduled for release on July 12 2022.

The antagonist voice, shown though 'written' annotations through out the book, points out the apparent ridiculousness of each creature's features. While the narrator also describes the evolutionary reasons or advantages for each animal's extraordinary characteristics. Humor, information and illustrations fill this guide to ridiculous animals. It includes funny labelled diagrams and will help teach kids about evolution by studying some of its most wild products.

The World's Most Ridiculous Animals is a fun book. I have to admit chuckling out load a couple times at the snarky commentary about the featured creatures. However, it is also informative and this combination could be just the thing to help reluctant readers tackle nonfiction reading assignments or requirements for school and summer reading. Many of the animals featured are familiar to me, but I did learn a little something new about even the Betta fish. There were also several creature I have never heard of, like the Mexican Mole Lizard. I think the balance of reasonably familiar and completely new animals is nice, keeping readers interested and engaged. The artwork is fun and does a good job of capturing some of the real aspects of the animals and still being cartoonish. The only thing I would have liked is some actual photographs of the creatures features (not all but at least a few) perhaps in the endpages, along with some recommendations of books or websites to see more.

⭐⭐⭐⭐-- adorable cover!

The title of this one grabbed my attention right away. Add in how much I love animals, and I knew I had to get my hands on it for review. I was not disappointed. Full of bright, fun and colorful illustrations and packed full of humorous information, this is sure to be a hit with the youngest (and oldest) of animal lovers.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

Educational and funny are two things that make a great book. I greatly enjoyed reading and also looking up the animals after reading about them to see of they were as cute as the picture. I highly recommend this for any animal lover and classroom.

This book is hilarious and informative! I know that my kids would love this book and all the interesting creatures it talks about. It also takes the different take on addressing specific things that make all of the creatures evolutionarily interesting and unique. The pictures and illustrations are simple, but effective, and the book is laid out in a way that is not overwhelming to the reader.

I honestly love books like these. It seems like no matter how many I read with my son, and no matter how many episodes of Wild Kratts we watch, there are always more strange animals out there, and this was written in such a fun way. It wasn't overwhelming, the illustrations were adorable, and the writing was easy to follow. A great book for kids interested in animals!

A fun and engaging book about animals. Jam-packed with interesting facts, the illustrations and the dual authors (the more serious facts writer, and the funny "written" in comments) makes this book a great fun choice for both kids and adults.
Such a delightful book, I want to read all of the author's other works now too!

The World's Most Ridiculous Animals is educational and sometimes hilarious illustrated reference for children. Each page features a different creature with some unique facts, and general information about them. This would be a great for children in upper elementary school.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC.

This book was a hit with my nine year old! They loved the quirky humour and the funny names given to each of the animals.
The artwork is wonderfully fun and colourful and the information is both accessible and entertaining.
This is a great book for any child's bookcase.

Thank you to NetGalley, Quarto Publishing and Philip Bunting for giving me a free digital copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review.

A fun and informative book but older children will be able to appreciate it better than its intended target readership.

As the title suggests, the book contains a compilation of various “ridiculous” animals. The reason why they are put in this ignominious category ranges from their appearance to their eating habits to even their strange behaviour. A wide range of animals, birds, fish, and insects is covered, and the information provided for each of the entries is, at the same time, hilarious and mindboggling.

Each page has a bright and funny illustration of the specific animal. There are cheeky labels surrounding the drawing, tagging its various body parts with quirky comments. There’s relatively more sober text detailing the animal’s evolutionary information and extraordinary characteristics. At the top of the page, the content also mentions the animal’s common name, its Latin biological name (which is struck through) and a substitute funny name that apparently suits it better. For instance, an okapi is a “fancypantseum stinkyhoof” while a common wombat is a “cubus poopus.”

There are a few reasons why I am not going higher in my rating.
👉 Amazon shows the reading age as 5-8 years but I don’t think readers of that age group will understand the puns and ‘dad jokes” scattered throughout the content. Children aged 10+ might be a better target.
👉 There are quite a few tough words, so younger readers might need a lot of assistance from knowledgeable adults (or the internet).
👉 The strikethrough is overused. I liked its usage as a substitute of the Latin name but when it comes in the content too, it gets very repetitive and even irritating.
👉 I feel like it missed on a few opportunities to provide explanations. Like, why is a secretary bird called a secretary bird? Does the hairy anglerfish actually have hair?
👉 One instance where I wasn’t satisfied with the illustrations and felt like looking up the images of al the creatures mentioned. The sketches are quite cute and quirky, but they don’t match up to the actual photos, especially as a lot of the “ridiculous” content is based on the appearance of the animals, and the illustrations don’t cover this angle accurately,

However, this would be a wonderful book for animal lovers aged upper tween and above. Substantiate the info in the book with googled photos of the animals and you will be able to appreciate the amazing features of those animals a lot better. It’s an informative collection of animal trivia and offers a fun way of knowing more about some “ridiculous” animals on our planet. The book did miss out on the most ridiculous one – the ‘homo not-so-sapiens’.

4 stars.

My thanks to Quarto Publishing Group and NetGalley for the DRC of “The World's Most Ridiculous Animals”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

How can you resist a book with a title like that? I didn’t, and now I know a lot more things about some ridiculous (and dangerous) animals (& birds & insects). The illustrations are super cute (who taught a caterpillar could look that artsy!) and will help in teaching kids about some amazing animals without scaring them.
The information is provided in two ways- a small block of text and handwritten (font) pointers around the illustrations. The language is informal, simple, and funny (yeah, ridiculous too).
Here are a few animals I loved reading about (not sure I want to meet any of them in person, oh well).
• Sea sheep- these cuties are chloroplasts!
• Decorator crab- designer pieces indeed.
• Bee hummingbird- nectar vampires, lol.
• Okapi- donkey, zebra, giraffe?
• Wattle-cup caterpillar- a series of ouches!
• Tardigrade- ridiculously tiny extremophiles, rofl.
• Zombie snail- one toxic cycle that!
• Hairy anglerfish- built-in LED. ;)
• Marine iguana- salty sneezes. Oops!
• Peacock mantis shrimp- some combo this!
• Exploding ants- such sacrifice, poor things.
• Orchid mantis- cute cannibals (or is it mantisbals?)
To sum up, The World's Most Ridiculous Animals is a cute and highly informative book about how animals have adapted to the changing conditions on the earth and thus survived when others perished. A lesson for us, humans, right?
I received an ARC from NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Frances Lincoln Children's Books and am voluntarily leaving a review.

This silly but also scientific children's picture book tells about some pretty great animal species and their unique adaptations (a.k.a. the things that make them ridiculous). The author's funny personality comes out as he crosses out words and replaces them with more kid-friendly and hilarious substitutions. For the most part, this only happens with the latin/scientific name of the animal. For example, the wattle-cup caterpillar, known for it's eight branches covered in pin-sharp spikes has the latin name Calcarifera ordinata, which is crossed out and replaced with: Oucheus oucheus. The illustrations of the animals, while still being anatomically accurate, also include a huge eye that makes it look hilarious. There is tons of great information on the pages, and the fun or silly facts that go with them definitely add an entertainment factor to this book. I could definitely see my grade 3 students loving this book! I would recommend it to parents and teachers of children in the age 4-11 range. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this fabulous book!