''Animalia'' is an illustrated

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

Graeme Base Graeme Rowland Base (born 6 April 1958) is a British-Australian author and artist of picture books. He is perhaps best known for his second book, '' Animalia'' published in 1986, and third book '' The Eleventh Hour'' which was released in 1989. ...

. It was originally published in 1986, followed by a tenth anniversary edition in 1996, and a 25th anniversary edition in 2012. Over four million copies have been sold worldwide. A special numbered and signed anniversary edition was also published in 1996, with an embossed gold jacket.

Synopsis

''Animalia'' is an

alliterative Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

book and contains twenty-six illustrations, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each illustration features an animal from the animal kingdom (A is for

alligator An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis''). Additiona ...

and

armadillo Armadillos (meaning "little armored ones" in Spanish) are New World placental mammals in the order Cingulata. The Chlamyphoridae and Dasypodidae are the only surviving families in the order, which is part of the superorder Xenarthra, along wi ...

, B is for

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

, etc.) along with a short poem utilizing the letter of the page for many of the words. The illustrations contain many other objects beginning with that letter that the reader can try to identify (however, there are not necessarily "a thousand things, or maybe more", as the author states). As an additional challenge, the author has hidden a picture of himself as a child in every picture.

Related products

Julia MacRae Books published an ''Animalia'' colouring book in 2008. H. N. Abrams also published a wall calendar colouring book version for children the same year. H. N. Abrams published ''The Animalia Wall Frieze'', a fold-out over 26 feet in length, in which the author created new riddles for each letter. The Great American Puzzle Factory created a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle based on the book's cover.

Adaptations

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...

was also created, based on the book, which airs in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. It also airs on

Minimax Minimax (sometimes MinMax, MM or saddle point) is a decision rule used in artificial intelligence, decision theory, game theory, statistics, and philosophy for ''mini''mizing the possible loss for a worst case (''max''imum loss) scenario. When de ...

for the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

, and in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

on the channel ET1. The

Australian Children's Television Foundation The Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) is a national non-profit children's media production and policy hub. The ACTF helps develop children's television policy; distributes and pays for Australian children's television series; ...

released a teaching resource DVD-ROM in 2011 to accompany the TV series with teaching aids for classroom use. In 2010, The Base Factory and AppBooks released Animalia as an application for

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

and iPhone/

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

Awards

''Animalia'' won the Young Australian's Best Book Award in 1987 for Best Picture Story Book. The

Children's Book Council of Australia The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) is a not for profit organisation which aims to engage the community with literature for young Australians. The CBCA presents the annual Children's Book of the Year Awards to books of literary merit ...

designated ''Animalia'' a 1987 Picture Book of the Year: Honour Book. Kid's Own Australian Literature Awards named ''Animalia'' the 1988 Picture Book Winner.

References

External links

Graeme Base's official website

A Learning Time activity guide
for ''Animalia'' created by The Little Big Book Club {{DEFAULTSORT:Animalia (Book) Alphabet books 1986 children's books Picture books by Graeme Base Puzzle books Australian children's books Puffin Books books