CREATURA written by Bec Crew published by Australian Geographic
Imagine an animal that will “mess you up if you so much look at it the wrong way”, and has “some truly bizarre behaviours” or “strange little fingers”. Bec’s imaginative and often humorous descriptions make reading about the quirky creatures in this book a delight.
Creatura is a collection of Mammals, Fish (and other sea creatures), Invertebrates, Birds, Reptiles and Amphibians who call Australia home. Some you’ve already heard of, but others will be rewardingly new discoveries.
Each Creatura star originally featured in Australian Geographic’s blog of the same name, where I’ve enjoyed Bec’s refreshing writing before. They provide perfect inspiration for Science Rhymes like this one:
Heady Hatterpillar by Celia Berrell
This gum-leaf caterpillar’s like
a hairy sausage unicorn
that keeps its dead and moulted heads
and wears them like a hennin horn.
Caterpillars like to eat and
eat until they split their sides,
then grow another bigger skin.
They’ll do this up to thirteen times.
But stink bugs know they’re tasty things
in which to poke their beaky straw
to suck out caterpillar juice.
A store of food those bugs adore.
It seems our caterpillar’s hat,
when waved across its sausage back,
can thwart a stink bug’s timely snack.
A princess hat prevents attack!
Even if you don’t read all the fine print, beneath each title Bec shares funny and caring, in-a-nutshell summaries. About the Head-Stacking Caterpillar, she says “… that is some post-apocalyptic warlord fashion, if ever I’ve seen it.” And she’s right!
Bec suffers from arachnophobia (fear of spiders), but that doesn’t stop her from giving certain creepy-crawlies a good rap. When talking about the Wrap-Around Spider she says “Something this good at hiding shouldn’t be so adorable”. Doesn’t that make you want to have a look?
And look you can. The photos are brilliant. My only wish was that the name of the creature in each photo wasn’t displayed in such small italic print.
Although this isn’t a children’s book, I’m sure recently accomplished readers will find many delights and fascinations here, especially if they like biology topics as much as I do.
