The Natural World

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

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>

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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!

Erratum:
"Pampas deer grass" should be ‘pampas deer graze' I suspect on the South American page.

This colorful and educational book is quite literally what it says: a bird's eye view of various places of beauty and fascination in the world, starting in the Florida Everglades and going down over South America, out to a Pacific atoll, then across the Pacific to Uluru Rock in central Australia, up over the Guilin Hills in China, across the Asian Steppes, down over the Himalayas, through East Africa, across to Wales, on to Northern Scandinavia, back to the Irish coast, and then to France.

At each stop we learn about the animals and plants that live there, and a little about the ecology and how the land got to be that way at that location. It was unusual, fun, and very interesting, and hopefully it will lure readers into learning more. I don't think anyone who has read this book or anything like it can fail to see what horrible things we're doing to our planet and how urgent it is that we stop doing those things and rectify the evil we've already perpetrated. I commend this fully as a very worthy read.

If you want to show your child what birds see while flying, it is a good book to start. The book consists of 22 pages and covers 14 topics. Here a young reader not only discovers beautiful views, but also learns interesting facts about animals, birds and the environment. Bird’s eye view is one of those books that you should have in paper because it makes you feel, not only see.
Thanks to the authors and NetGalley for a kindly provided review copy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has so much to offer: beautiful, colorful illustrations;geography and ecology of the lands of the world; animals species of each area; and a wealth of additional information to open curious minds and foster further investigation. I can't wait to share this with my grandchildren!

This book is colourful, well written and fun. It provides a birds eye view of different landscapes and areas of the world. This is perfect for engaging younger children and informing older ones. It’s deal for the primary classroom.

This is a pretty book that had some good qualities but missed the mark in some areas. It's a short book that shows areas of the world from a bird's perspective with bright illustrations. Along the bottom of the fold out pages are lots of animals you'd find in each biome. There is quite a lot of text, meaning it would not work very well for a read-aloud with some kids. That said, it's pretty dry and I can't see a lot of kids choosing to just sit and read through it. I don't know who the audience is. Kids can learn a small amount just by looking at the illustrations. The areas chosen seemed a bit random and also missed the mark at times. Flying over the Amazon, we see one little area that's clear cut and I thought there would be some information about this. Nope (not that I could see, anyway, parts of the text on fold out pages were too small to read on my ARC). The areas chosen seemed kind of arbitrary too, with an emphasis on places white folks and wildlife live. We have Florida, the French countryside, Ireland, Scandinavia, the Welsh hills, and so on. Places like Australia and Africa are shown with no signs of cities or people. It gives the impression that people hardly inhabit any of the world that birds see. It's kind of a miss for me.

My rating system:
1 = hated it
2 = it was okay
3 = liked it
4 = really liked it
5 = love it, plan to purchase, and/or would buy it again if it was lost

I read a temporary digital ARC of the book for the purpose of review.

This book may have been labelled as a children's title, but I loved it! The illustrations are so gorgeous, they make my heart happy! I almost can feel the exhilaration of looking down from the sky at those vast expanses of earth. I learned a lot too from the text - I guess I'm that adult who reads children's books to learn the basics without having to read too much. The colorful and beautiful pictures certainly help!

I think this book would be perfect for bonding and learning time as you go through it with your young children. Get them to look for the animals that are featured at the bottom of the page in the main spread of the page.

I would love to see other areas of the world covered in a book for adults in this sort of format!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. This is my honest review.

'Bird's Eye View: The Natural World' by John Farndon with illustrations by Paul Boston is a non-fiction look at the world from a unique perspective.

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like to birds? In this book the different continents are explored from way up high. Starting in Florida and heading West, this book explores the terrain, habitats and animals that make up our world.

The paintings in book are landscape and two-page, but occasionally there are 4-page layouts. There are lots of details on every page, and there are things to look for on the pages.
The text is nice as well. Helping young children to get a bigger grasp on the world we live in by changing perspective is a really nice approach. I enjoyed getting a chance to review this book.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Quarto Publishing Group-words & pictures, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

This book is a magnificent journey across the world, shown to us from the sky or 'a bird's eye view'.

Each full-page spread shows us a location in amazing color from a bird's eye view, with a visual list of animals that are native to that area at the bottom of the page. There are lots of educational bits of text throughout, showing and telling us about the ecosystems, habitats, and the animals that live there.

This incredible book spans the world and shows us unique geographical features and habitats from each continent.

Starting out in the Florida Everglades, we travel down through the Amazon and Andes Mountains in South America, across the Pacific to Australia, upwards through Asia into Russia, down over the Himalayas and across the Indian Ocean to Africa, then up through Europe and the UK before traveling back to the United States and touching down in Central Park.

We were extra tickled that our journey started out in Florida, which is where we live and explore and are always on the lookout for gators and the other critters that are native to our unique state!
We really enjoyed this book and hope to add it to our little library to reference in the future!

Have you ever heard or sung the Raffi song about the great beautiful planet in the sky that is our home? I thought about that song while immersing myself in this beautifully illustrated book that is suggested for children aged 7 to 10. I think that adults will enjoy it too!

The conceit is that we are in a hot air balloon traveling around the globe. We are high enough up for a panorama but close enough to see the details of each landscape. We start the journey in the Florida Everglades and end in France. Along the way, we spend time in other places including the Amazon, Uluru Rock in Australia, the Himalayas, the African Serengeti, Scandinavia and more. In each place that is visited, readers learn about the flora, fauna and unique aspects of each locale. The book ends with a reminder to take care of the environment and to value nature.

The detail in the illustrations is remarkable. The text itself also is filled with interesting facts. This book is a great introduction to the geography of our world.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the experience. All opinions are my own.

It is not a long book and quick book. Images are nicely done. Great books to teach kids about nature by looking from the sky. INtroduced to different animals and the environment. Not in-depth, basic introduction to places and animals.

I enjoyed this well enough. I think it'd perhaps be better for a classroom than a personal collection. I found the lack of real connection between the stops/pages a bit jarring for me as an adult. I'm not sure a child would care, however. I then got confused about why we went from Russia to Wales to Scandinavia then back to Ireland then back to France but what do I know about European geography, maybe it does make sense.

As a sidenote I was required to read the eARC in Adobe Digital Editions and it was very difficult to actually see the full-page spreads in that software. Just something to think about for the publisher.

"Bird's Eye View: The Natural World" written by John Farndon is a beautifully illustrated (by Paul Boston) children's book on ecosystems, animals, birds, and geography that is both informative and lovely. The book is full of wonderful facts, pictures of beautiful creatures, birds, and other types of fauna that is very interesting to children and adults alike.

The book starts in North America in the Everglades then moves to the Amazon rain forest in South America. Next, the bird's eye view moves to the Pacific atolls formed atop volcanoes from long ago. Next, the book moves along to Australia, China, and the Ural Mountains in Russia. It moves on to the Himalayan mountains and then to the Serengeti plains of East Africa. Lastly, the book concludes in Europe exploring Northern Scandinavia, Wales and Ireland.

This literally covers so much ground in just over twenty pages. It is sure to occupy children hours reading and learning as they move from place to place like a bird soaring over the earth.

I received this eBook free of charge from Quarto Publishing Group – Words and Pictures via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. I did not receive any fiscal compensation from either company for this review and the opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy from Quarto Publishing Group - words & pictures and NetGalley for my unbiased opinion of the book. I loved the illustrations and graphics in the book made it very colorful and interesting to read. I liked all the natural habits of the winged animals they focused on including their diet etc... I will be giving this book out for Christmas gifts!

For some reason my ARC had white pages with black text boxes around outlines of where the images should be. Only from page 30 did I get the picture(s) and see that we are in a balloon looking down on natural beauty around the world, from grasslands to taiga, with the creatures which live here named and some human activity shown as well.
Children will probably want to skip quickly through the pictures and come back and read the text. They can absorb fascinating facts and get familiar with landscapes. More, they can see how different creatures live adapted to different environments.
If I had been able to see the full pages I might have given a better rating. I enjoyed the pages I did see. Ideal for budding naturalists. Kids might ask parents how some words are pronounced and this would be helpful for class projects on different countries.
I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

Beautiful illustrations in a picture book about the natural world told from a bird's eye view. Children will learn so much about the world in just over twenty pages.

This book is a birds eye view of the world. My son loved it as you travelled around the world looking down. It gave you information about that part of the world, that enable you to learn about it and then talk about what you could see. The pictures are cartoon like and the text clear and simple to read. A good book to learn about the world and the things within it.

Bird's Eye view shows a different perspective while providing useful information on geography and ecosystems. Beautiful and educational

"The Natural World" take a different approach to take young readers to view our mother nature from above, like birds would.

What I love about the book:
1- Not only it is packed with useful information about plants, animal habitats, landscapes, and random geology information, it could be used as a look-and-find book which younger readers would appreciate.

2- The book covers major landscapes all over seven continents

3- Beautifully illstruated

The information, however, could be choppy and all over the places. For the purpose of introducing natural science to children, the random information definitely could hold young readers' attention well. But reading the book as an adult, I find myself very difficult to focus and to absorb the information. To me, I find it is very difficult to read this with my 5yo son. Regardless, I still think "The Natural World" is a wonderful book to readers of all ages. I highly recommend it to parents and educators who savor quality reading materials for children.