Subtitled “Jaw-Dropping Mouths of the Animal World,” Open Wide!, is a great picture non-fiction book that tells you everything you wanted to know about mouths, teeth, tongues, beaks, and bills!
What Is Open Wide?
Published by What on Earth! Books, Open Wide! is a slim hardback comprising 64 pages. It’s filled with facts about animals and their mouths. It’s written by Dr Letizia Diamante and illustrated by Ed J. Brown. It’s aimed at children aged around 7 upwards.
I enjoy books that take a different angle on things. There are lots of different natural history books available but Open Wide! takes a single frame of reference and examines the similarities and differences found across species from throughout the animal kingdom.
Eating is something we rather take for granted, but as Open Wide! shows, there are many different ways in which living creatures ingest their food. The book doesn’t just talk about how a particular animal eats, it also explains what might happen once a meal is inside an animal, with all the squirmy sorts of detail that children of all ages enjoy. Indeed, many pages have a highlighted circle of text, entitled “not for the squeamish.” We know where most readers will head the moment they turn the page!
As well as straightforward information delivery, the book also attracts reader engagement by asking questions and setting small games and challenges. These ask readers to think about what they’re reading and the animals they’re learning about while offering some validation if they’ve correctly worked out the answer.
The book takes in the entirety of the animal kingdom: Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. It even covers some extinct creatures and examines what the fossil record might tell us about their eating habits. Everything you want to know about tongues, spit, clawing, and gnawing – it’s all in here!
Finally, the book closes with a comprehensive glossary, a useful index, and a list of selected sources.
Why Read Open Wide!?
Like many of the other What On Earth! Books I have reviewed, Open Wide! threads that difficult needle of imparting information whilst never becoming dry. By choosing to look at animals through the prism of something that can be both gross and scary, they have created the perfect information delivery system. The book’s readers will lap it up.
None of this would have been possible without Ed J Brown’s excellent illustrations, which complement the text well, and prompt visual learners to get stuck in. It’s almost impossible not to open the book at a random page, find something interesting, and start reading. Like the best sort of reference books Open Wide! invites you in, then insists you stay for more. Fortunately, it doesn’t gnash you with pointy teeth while you’re there.
Open Wide! is a very engaging read. What on Earth! has created an excellent non-fiction book that children of all ages (not to mention adults looking over their shoulders) can enjoy.
If you would like to pick up a copy of Open Wide! you can do so here, in the US, and here, in the UK. (Affiliate Links)
If you enjoyed this review, check out my other book reviews, here.
I received a copy of this book in order to write this review.
