Spectacular Snakes – Emma Flannery and Professor Tim Flannery. Illustrated by Katie Melrose.

Hardie Grant Australia

December 2024

ISBN:9781761211737

Price:AU$26.99, NZ$29.99

Imprint:Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing

This is big, bold and beautiful ,and younger K would have adored this book as she has been an ophiophilist from the time she was toddling after our garden skinks and geckos.

Your readers from Smalls to Not-so-smalls will love it too. Katie Melrose’s illos are sensational, and the information within from renowned naturalist Prof. Tim Flannery, along with his daughter, Emma, is interesting and focuses on exactly the kind of facts that kiddos love to read – those little snippets of weirdness they always relish.

The one thing that kind of jarred with me was this bit about our Eastern Browns. Hmmm, grasslands and woodlands?? can (also) be found on golf courses, suburban backyards, school grounds, the other day in the carpark at The Kid’s workplace……just say, they can be found anywhere and we don’t have ‘woodlands’ and actually, I wouldn’t say we have ‘grasslands’ either. Also – a dangerous snake – seems a bit mild really, don’t you think, for a snake that I’ve known to chase a person?

But aside from that blip in the info, which you could easily discuss with kiddos if sharing it with a group, there’s some great stuff in here. And, it really is a beautiful package – something Hardie Grant always do SO well – beautiful textured cover with gilt accents, BIG size that kiddos love. It joins three others in this series, so perhaps a good idea to order them all in.

We know that animal books never, ever go to waste! This gets a 4 🐍🐍🐍🐍 rating from me for readers from around Year 2 upwards.