The Not BAD Animals

A fun book that is both educational and great for reducing certain animal stigma. There is a large variety of animals known to have a bad rep (such as spiders, black cats, wolves, etc.) and on the first two-page spread the pages comprise of the myth and misconception with darker, heavier tones. The following spread uncovers the truth and the whole atmosphere changes dramatically with light and friendlier tones. I found the illustration effective, cute and engaging.

However, I feel like this is best for bite-sized moments as it can be a little overwhelming with many little facts regarding numerous animals. Despite that, I really enjoyed the book. The illustration and execution were exceptional. A great read. I’d recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book, The Not BAD Animals by Sophie Corrigan, is one of my favorite new reads this year. Corrigan gives each of the animals she discusses two double page spreads. The first spread is about the myths and erroneous beliefs that people hold about the animal and is done in a way that makes the species seem slightly scary or disagreeable. Turning the page, the illustration style changes a bit - lighter colors, cuter animals with big eyes - and the animals explain the things they do that small humans might find gross or scary (having big teeth, eating dung or roadkill.) It's a lovely way of tackling the misinformation and reframing animal behavior to make them less frightening. Just a really fun, terrific book. I learned a few things myself!

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Loved this book about animals that people are often scared of and the amazing things that they do for humans. Such great messages with fun illustrations make this a great read for readers of all ages.

My 8 year-old daughter and I both loved this darling and educational children's book that allows all kinds of so called creepy, scary and icky animals to redeem themselves and tell kids all the ways they're awesome.

The first two-page spread for each animal lists all the myths about them with artwork that makes them look scary or gross. Turn the page and the animals are redrawn to look darling and it's filled with facts where they tell you why they actually are innocent, wonderful, or excused for whatever small detraction they might have.

My daughter was initially a little scared by the book at the very first page, because it showed a scary looking spider and said it did things like "At night time, I crawl on your face and you may swallow me. In fact, you swallow about eight of us EVERY YEAR!"). She didn't like it at all and asked to read something else, but she was happy and relieved at the next page when the friendly looking spider said how ridiculous that was and gave actually factual information and lots of interesting true facts.

There are a huge variety of animals covered, and there's lots of great information. This would be especially good for kids with phobias about some of these, or who just think of all animals, bugs, etc. as scary or gross. It's a great read that does a fantastic job advocating for animals and educating kids.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This book is fantastic! I love how it's been put together - the book consists of 2 pages on each animal/insect/reptile and tells you myths and misconceptions about that animal, then on the next 2 pages it explains how these things are untrue and tells you facts about the animal and the positive things about it.
I love how this book has bern done, and especially love the balance of myth and misconceptions against facts and positivity about each animal.
This book will keep your child entertained for a long time and the illustrations are fantastic too!

There is a lot of interesting information in this book which is great for a child's ever growing mind. I did find however that it was best to read the book in small chunks as there is so many facts it's hard to take them all in. Also the layout of using stereotypes then facts then reverting back to stereotypes also got a bit repetitive, especially with so many animals included, so maybe fewer animals spread across two books would have been better. Asides from these two thing, I really enjoyed this book and the artwork went greatly with the book. The use of the black section to seclude certain facts was also a much appreciated idea that made it easy to pick out the key facts.

What a lovely idea for a book - uncovering the truth behind the animals we have always thought of as BAD. I love how it helps children discover in such a fun way about stereoptypes and judgement. I think it so important for children to develop the ability to understand myths and differentiate those from facts, this book goes a long way towards helping them do this.

***Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***

I loved this! There are so many animals that get a bad rap and this book debunks all of the negative aspects about so many "scary" creatures. It's fun and made in such a cute format.

Cute picture book with information about animals we love to hate. The artwork was wonderful, especially the big cute eyes given to the animals when describing how they aren't awful. I would recommend this for any public library collection.

A really interesting book, very nice to see the alternative side of things. My 8 year old enjoyed looking at the pictures, and finding out more. She preferred to dip in, and I wouldn't use this as a bed time story/reading book; however, I think it would be a great addition to any child's bookshelf if they are interested in animals and biology/science.

This book is really informative about a lot of animals that we consider "bad," but in reality they do what they were created to do and a lot of them are not harmful at all. The illustrations are wonderful and even though I wouldn't use this book for a storytime since there are so many word bubbles on each page, it is a really good book if you want to learn more about these animals.

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.

#TheNotBADAnimals #NetGalley
Are they misunderstood? Do they deserve to be labeled by all the bad things that are said about them? Sophie Corrigan takes up the cause of more than 35 bugs and animals known for the fear they induce and the trouble they cause. She introduces each bug/animal with a 2 page spread of the myths that have circulated for years. Do spiders love to crawl on your face at night and cause you to eat more than 8 of them each year.? Are hyenas lazy, sly and sneaky thiefs? Do wrasps want to sting you? Can a snake hypnotize you with his eyes? Are camel humps filled with water so that they can spit as much as they like? The next 2 page spread share truths about the wonders of these bugs/animals. In bite size text spaced out on the pages children can easily learn that the spotted hyenas are led by a female, rats are actually squeaky clean animals that groom several times a day, killer whales are really dolphins, skunks keep gardens free of lizards, snakes, mice and creepy, crawling bugs. Children will devour these pages that they can browse through and read little bits of at a time. They will laugh at some of the illustrations and preposterous claims. Children ages kindergarten through grade 3 will love learning these little known facts about ants, komodo dragons, pigs, wolfs, scorpions, dung beetles, tasmanian devils, pit bulls, weasels, toads, crocodiles, centipedes, slugs, angler fish, etc.

This book would be a great addition to any elementary or public library.

This book is brilliant and one I plan to order straight away. Each animal has two beautifully illustrated double page spreads. The first contains the animals claiming to do all of the things people dislike them for (pigs being smelly, spiders crawling on your face at night) and the second double spread debunks the claims with explanations for the animals' behaviours. This book is very funny and informative.

Corrigan's book is a fabulous exploration of some of my favorite animals. The "bad" animals (bats, skunks, spiders, etc.) are not so bad after you learn a little about them while looking at cute illustrations. This book will certainly make an ally out of some children.

Thank you NetGalley and Frances Lincoln for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

A great book which would be easily assessable for every child within a classroom. The layout, comic style and illustrations make this book engaging for readers from years 2-6. The sarcastic style of writing combined with the factual information works wonderfully well together. Reluctant readers will feel at ease reading this book because has a great balance of small snippets of text combined with excellent illustrations. It also uses less complex language to describe things and where complex language has to be used, it is always explained in brackets. This would be great to use as part of any topic on animals and their adaptations to suit their environment and I can imagine using parts of this as a stimulus of children to write their own using the same style. I can also envisage sections of this book being used with children who have a fear or phobia of certain animals. Overall a great read which can be used in the classroom in so many different ways.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I loved this book. The pictures are so cute and I like the layout of the myths on the page and the facts on the next page. I highly recommend this book. There is a good variety of "bad" animals.

The NOT Bad Animals is a cute book and we did enjoy it but how much easier it would be to read if there was a kindle version!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I adored this book. It takes the animals we often hear referred to as “bad” and/or “creepy” and sets the record straight on so many details. For each animal, there is one page with all the incorrect facts we do often hear about them, as well as places they appear negatively in folklore and in superstition. Then, there is a page with all the correct information, giving facts about what makes these animals important to the circle of life. I would buy this book for just about every kid in my life (though I’d definitely like to also get it just for some key animals — poor spiders, I’m thinking of you — for a few adults in my life).

Not only is this a totally fun and often times funny read, it was chock full of all kinds of facts. Animals are already something that most children love and this book allows them to also love reading and learning about the too. So get ready to watch your kids turn page after page promoting not only their love for animals but also reading and learning as well.

A great book to present a different perspective on wild animals and to make the difference between facts and myths

These animals are tired of us talking bad about them. One at a time, each animal shows us the negative stereotypes about them in a colorful two-page spread, then shows us their true colors on the following pages.

I am so excited about this book. It's bright, funny, and unique. Readers of all ages can benefit from it, but it would do best with grades 3-6. I will be purchasing a copy for my public library.

I received an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

What's not to love about this book! In her book, Sophie Corrigan, not only brings to light some fantastic facts about various creatures, read Spiders, Cats, Bats, Sharks and Scorpions and many many others, that are hugely hugely misunderstood and dreaded but also shares some very interesting myths and old wives' tales associated with them. The book is full of illustrations that add a lot of light (in both ways) to the animal covered.

There is also a segment dedicated to FACTS related with the particular animal on the spread devoted to it like did you know that Skunks have a poor eyesight but an excellent sense of smell and hearing to make up for that? Or that when a Vulture is annoyed, its whole head turns red, as if it is blushing?

The book is a complete hoot and everyone, from the 39 year old me to my 5 and 12 year olds loved going through this one. Also this is one of those gems that you would keep going back to over and over again.

This was a fun way to teach kids about some of the misunderstood critters of our world.
Each critter gets two pages.
One filled with old wives tales and the second with the facts.
I think it's a bit wordy to be read all in one sitting, but would be great to read one animal each day.
Thanks to NetGalley & Quarto Publishing Group - Frances Lincoln Childrens for my DRC.

This was such a wonderful children's book - perfect for any child who loves animals or even those who are afraid. I absolutely plan to purchase several copies to gift to my favorite little people! Sweet illustrations and interesting fun facts!

Thank you, Quarto Publishing Group and NetGalley for a digital ARC!