This is a great nonfiction book that shows a variety of animals (or their parts) as actual size. I read this to preschool and PreK kids. Their favorites were the spider and the tiger. It’s also good to guess the animal on some of the pages.

This is yet another picture book about nature from Jenkins, and another winner.

I’ll try to remember this book next time I say I have a large spider in my apartment. I never knew there were spiders so large, and I’m glad I’ve never seen one off the pages of a book.

This is a rather large picture book and a couple of times pages fold out so there is more space to see the actual size of an animal or part of an animal. Biggest, heaviest, occasionally smallest animals of their type are the most featured. Often, just a part of an animal is shown.

As is typical of Jenkins’s work, the main part of the book has photos and some basic information, then in the back of the book, there is more detailed information given for each animal covered in the main part of the book.

This way, children in a wide age range can enjoy the book, as can adults. Many of these animals are impressive, and interesting to learn about and view.

The illustrations are so good. They don’t try to look like photos but they do look very realistic. I love collage art and these particular cut and torn paper pictures are wonderful.

I’ve loved every Jenkins book I’ve read and I’m very happy that I have more existing books of his to enjoy; I’m hopeful he will create more brand new books too.

A book of images of animal parts that are the actual size, accompanied by facts and measurements for each animal. How cool is that? From a tiny goby fish to an elephant foot and a Goliath frog, each page is captivating. The only thing cooler than the actual object is the way the pictures are made, through collaging paper.

A great non-fiction book that makes it easier for children to see the actual size of their favorite animals. The large size of the book makes it great to share with bigger groups.

The artwork is stunning. Great science book. Shows the actual size of the animal (or part of the animal). Steve Jenkins may be my new favorite non-fiction author for children!

So much fun to compare our size to some of the largest/smallest animals. This book is fun each time you read it!

I wasn't sure how Zenobia would like this book, but it has a title that begins with "A" (for her current Challenge, and yes she's only 4 years old but it's never too young to start). With 3 "A" titles already used up in her and James' challenges, I wasn't left with many choices from my Home Library, but it doesn't make sense to borrow library books for them until we've read and reviewed all the books I actually own.

I guess the reason I wasn't sure about it is because I myself am ambivalent it. I love the concept - show us pictures of animals, or parts of animals, the actual size they are. So they're not put into perspective in the way that books about dinosaurs show a human figure beside them so we can gauge their enormosity (and yes, I do know that isn't a word, but it should be). A gorilla's hand takes up the whole page, a giant moth makes me shudder (I don't like moths at all, not even the smallest of them), there's the tiniest of something else, and there's a crocodiles tooth (causing me to burst into song - you don't know it? - go look at a song clip from Disney's Peter Pan), and so on. But I find it very hard to see these things as true to size, because I'm so accustomed to pictures in books being relational.

When I read it to Zenobia and james, therefore, I used to my hands to augment the relative sizes, e.g. "Can you imagine an eye as big as this? as big as your head?"

Both children's attention was held throughout - that's a good indication - and they wanted to look back at some of the pages - even better. I think I should come back to this book later with the intention of reassessing it. I may need to increase my 3-star rating.