A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, written and illustrated by Sami Bayly, is currently scheduled for release on October 27 2020. This book gives some of the animal kingdom's more overlooked animals a turn in the limelight. Breathtaking scientific illustrations flaunt their unconventional beauty, while fascinating facts about their conservation status, diet, strange quirks, and habitat completes each vivid portrait. The Bornean orangutan, whose immense cheek pads give it a dinner-plate-like face, is the largest tree-dwelling mammal. The red-lipped batfish, alas, is a terrible swimmer, with leg-shaped fins better suited to walking along the seafloor.The mysterious goblin shark, rarely seen by humans, has a long snout and a terrifying flexible jaw to snatch its prey. These are just a few of this stunning encyclopedia's sixty curious creatures living among us who might not be as cute as a kitten but are no less deserving of our love.
A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures is a book that takes some of my favorite quirky animals, and some I have never heard of, and explains them. The illustrations are phenomenal. Even if you did not read a word of the book, he images would be well worth picking it up all on their own. Bayly's artwork is scientifically accurate, but not sterile. The unusual features of each animal is prominent in the illustrations, and they each all seem to have some personality and pride in the stance of each being. I spent my first pass of the book focusing on that art, and have found myself going back to look at some of the images again and again. Now for the text. I thought that each animal profile was very well done. What we know about the animals were shared in an accessible manner, and I like that instead of leaving it at that Bayly made a point of saying when we just have not had enough research or studies done to answer important questions about the animals. I also like the variety of creatures chosen, it was not all the odd animals that seem to find there way onto these kind of books, the blob fish and hellbenders, but there were also animals that might be thought as common, or so recently discovered that I have never heard of them. I was very sad to see how many of these cool creature are endangered, threatened, or close to being in danger. The only complaint I had will be fixed in the print addition, since they had a space saved for my coveted resources in the digital galley I read.
A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures is a book that will be making its way into my personal home library. It is stunning visually, and interesting to read and explore.
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