Blog-Birthday Book Post – Revisting “ANIMALIA” by Base

The moment before (Naomi's photos)
The moment before
(Naomi’s photos)

Visualising Ideas will be four years old on Dec. 8th! This blog has become such an integral part of my life that I almost forgot its birthday isn’t the same as mine…

One of my first ever book posts was about our all-time favorite-family-fun-for-all-ages book Animalia, by Graeme Base.

I wouldn’t have written about it the same way at all today. I began these Saturday Book posts on day one but their style has changed.

Those early posts were rather formal. I don’t try to supply a blurb of the book anymore. Getting the official blurb, pics or anything else is only a click away. I’m not trying be an official book club blog.

I just want to share the fun (or lack of, as the case may be).

This is such a great book to have on your bookshelf because we revisited it again and again at different stages. The clever combination of it being an alphabet book with stunning drawings of oh-so-many things for each letter along with it being a sort of “Where’s Waldo” book, excited the boys when they were small. The first time we looked at it we missed so much! It took a while till we realized that EVERY SINGLE THING  on a given page is related to a letter. For example, that snake we saw on the page for the letter A isn’t just there to play its role in the overall drawing, we have to come up with a name of a snake that begins with A (Anaconda!). That led to many hours of puzzling over pages and sharing with friends to seek help.

The book went to the classroom for a while but came back home – the boys were concerned over keeping this one!

When the new “Dr. Who” episodes started airing on TV here, an exciting discovery was made – that unidentified strange thing on the page for the letter D is a DALEK! Who knew? I had actually seen some of the old Dr. Who episodes as a child but didn’t remember anything except the Tardis travelling in time. Just the other day there was some mention of the word “exterminate” (one of the few words Dalek’s say on the show) and my eldest and I chuckled about the fact we actually have a book with a Dalek in it!

By the way, I think the double spread for the letter “L” is my favorite page. It’s just so beautiful!

 

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