![]() This is a truly beautiful book that will appeal to young and old and if remembering all the descriptive nouns is a bit too taxing on the brain, then just paging through and studying his brilliant sketches will bring hours of fun.īreakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review. Who can resist looking into the skies and saying “There’s a convocation of eagles” or watching vultures feasting on a dead animal “We’re so lucky to see a wake of vultures”Īnd in the water section some equally brilliant descriptive nouns: “A shiver of sharks” (too right! It would send your body into shivers!) or “a smack of jellyfish” (and we’ve all experienced how sore that can be!) Matt Sewell has divided the book into three parts land, air and water. I have always enjoyed finding out what a group of a specific animal is called and thanks to Matt Sewell, I am now able to appear hugely knowledgeable when discussing bears by saying “Oh yes, in fact a group of bears is really a sleuth of bears” or “look at that caravan of camels” or my best while staring at a river in Africa “Ah, there is a crash of hippos” ![]() Note: I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Overall, it's a cute book but not something I'd buy myself. For example, look at these images of cute, innocent (yeah right!) starlings versus the vultures that are definitely up to something. Eyes and facial expressions are one of the hardest things to illustrate (as well as human hands!), in my opinion, and I think he does a good job. I do like the way Sewell illustrates the eyes of some of the animals. It's not meant to be an informational book, really. While it does have some scientific information about the animals it portrays, I wouldn't take most of it to the bank. I felt pretty much the same about this book as that one: it's a whimsical book with cute illustrations. This one in particular takes a look at the fun and amusing names there are for groups of different kinds of animals, for example, a murder of crows or a parliament of owls, and it also has some descriptions and thoughts about the names and animals. This follows a similar format to that one, and to a bunch of other Sewell books. I didn't realize until I got this book from NetGalley that I'd read and reviewed another one of Matt Sewell's books, Owls: Our Most Enchanting Bird. ![]() I really liked this enchanting little book with its colourful bold artwork and Sewell’s charming prose but if there was one minor flaw was it too brief. Alongside each collective noun is a delightful watercolour of the animals and a little explanation of the origins of the noun. As well as the titled, A Charm of Goldfinches and the well-known Murder of Crows he introduces to us the less common quarrel of sparrows, a quiver of cobras, a harem of seals and deceit of lapwings. Matt Sewell has collected together all the collective nouns for all manner of animals who inhabit land, sea and air. But how do you collate wild animals and birds? Should they all be flocks and herds? Thankfully human imagination has gone to work on this and come up with a whole host of rich and interesting names for all species of animals. ![]() It works well for domesticated animals, where people are used to talking about a herd of cows, or a flock of sheep. Humans have always had a natural desire to collect and group things together.
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