This is a cute book which takes all the myths about animals and turns them around. First you get the myths about animals, such as black cats, and then you get the real version, with what black cats actually do.

It is a good list, not sure why, as some I hadn't even thought about being bad, such as a seagull, or a camel.

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/the-not-bad-animals.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5602" />

Fun book for kids to learn about animals, and perhaps get more curious and looking to find out more.

Some of the animals included
*Camel
*Scorpion
* Creepy Birds
* Jellyfish
* Centipede
* Slug
* Anglerfish
* Opossum

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

This is a fun and unique way to write a informational book about animals for kids. It's also a good way to help kids (and adults too!) get over fears they may have about some of these animals by clearing up some of the misconceptions.

This is a very successful book for the school library or home tutor. Every animal that could be deemed 'bad' in some way (that's 'bad' in the bad way, not 'bad' in the good way) gets four pages – two where all the urban myths abound, such as how we eat spiders in our sleep, we're always getting bumped off in return by sharks, etc, and then two where the reality is conveyed, and we learn that these animals are actually, on the whole, good – and that's 'good' in the good way. The design of the page does look rather busy, with a moderately successful artwork peppered with copious arrows and captions and swirling bits of info, but generally the book conveys its information very well, and the distinctive approach to teaching us respect for nature is very welcome. Yes, it's highly anthropomorphised (we're told jellyfish have no eyes, then see a full face on our one in the picture), but the way the true trivia is in a firm box as opposed to all the pull-quotes elsewhere really points out quite nicely what we should be taking on board. You never know, appreciation for wasps and the way pigeons walk is asked for here, and it might just get it.

Erratum:
p17 has 'bast' instead of 'bats' in the 'facts' section! Bast was a cat god of the Egyptians.
I don't know of any scorpion that's poisonous, but several are venomous! The difference is that if you eat a scorpion (and people as well as animals do eat them) you won't be poisoned, but you can get its venom injected if one stings you!

Here's another educational book about animals. This one tries to improve the undeservedly bad reps of certain critters such as spiders, sharks, and vampire bats. Good luck with that! But it's intelligently written and amusingly-illustrated by an author who is evidently English as judged by her lingo (or perhaps Australian?) and whose last name maybe ought to be 'Incorrigible'? I ask this because I'm by no means convinced that cats have anywhere near the negative reputation she seems to think, yet here they are, right up front, getting a PR job. I find that highly suspicious!

The book even features hyenas, so if you're a fan of the recent (as of this blog post!) Birds of Prey movie, in which Harley Quinn had a pet hyena (not recommended!), you may find this entertaining! I did. But then I loved that movie. The book also features skunks, which I agree are very cute. I'll never forget this one episode of Mythbusters in which the stated task was to determine the best method of removing skunk smells from clothing.

In order to do that, they had to get a skunk to spray, and they had this cute little thing that refuse to spray no matter what they did! It was hilarious, It was like the anti-skunk, but having encountered one walking in to work one dark morning (I was walking in to work - the skunk was already quite busily at work), and noticing how it turned so its back was always toward me as I passed it, the very opposite of what most wild animals will do, I would never trust one as a coworker! That said, it did not spray me since I kept moving and made no threat to it, so I thank that skunk for its forbearance and restraint under trying conditions.

But I digress. The book covers crocodiles, vultures, rats (which I personally adore, having had pet ones and started a children's book series - The Little Rattuses™ - about them), wasps (which, call me waspish, but I certainly do not adore), scorpions (which I adore even less, having found one in the bathtub one night that had apparently been enterprising enough to climb up the bath drainpipe, but then stupid enough to find itself in a slippery bathtub with no exit!), snakes, toads, wolves, ants, and so on, you can see that the animal kingdom is well covered and it's not just all about mammals, as far too many young children's books are.

This book is very well done - amusing, entertaining, nicely put together, hosted a wealth of animals in its eighty-some pages and was very educational. Yes! It's correct, for example, when it advises that peeing on a jellyfish sting will not help. It might even make it worse. The best treatment for such a sting is to pour vinegar on the affected area and then remove the stingers with tweezers (don't scrape them off with anything). What's not to like? Okay, apart from the vampire bats, what's not to like? Okay, vampire bats and scorpions, what's not to like? Really? I commend this as a worthy read.