A most excellent gift for armchair explorers

The perfect mix of science, exploration, and exhuberant extravagance of the imagination.

If you marvel at the monstrous details of life, such as teeth (a visual preoccupation of McB's) and can be found with your nose in Belt's Naturalist in Nicaragua or Kingsley's hilariously dry tales of tromping through swamps and casually emptying baskets of odds and ends such as a human hand, then get this book.  McBride is not just an artist of great skill but a lively writer. Here and there, a word distinguishes itself by its wayward spelling, but all scientific spelling is pedant-certified. 

Navigating the composition of the pages is an adventure in itself.

 

World of Monsters by Marc McBride was published a few years ago, scooping up honours but not enough notoriety to keep him in pens. If you buy it for someone special, you can pretty much be sure that it won't be a case of "I already have it."

Any child who gets it, is one lucky child. It's the kind of book that ages with you. It is, in 6 words: a classic that doesn't know it—the kind that is your friend.

International shipping from Scholastic Australia

Highly recommended for all people who know that no leather jacket is as cool as a leatherjacket.