The World's Weirdest Animals by Claire Hibbert (Arcturus Publishing)

We've been balancing our fiction reading with an awful lot of non-fiction books as Charlotte's thirst for knowledge and natural curiosity grows nearly as fast as she does. The animal kingdom provides scintillating subject matter for any book and in this particular instance, the emphasis is on taking a closer look at some very odd animals indeed.

Claire Hibbert has scoured the earth for the wildest, weirdest and most wonderful animals. Collected together in this big and colourful volume, "The World's Weirdest Animals" might sound a bit sensationalist, but the facts and figures presented along with gorgeous colour photographs of each animal will give your curious little would-be zookeeper plenty to keep them occupied.

From the comical (and slightly gross) blobfish to the astonishing colour-changing chameleon, animals range from cute to completely crazy. Children can learn about the animal habitats, diets and all sorts of other interesting things (like the fact that geckos can lick their own eyes if they start to dry out, or that natural camouflage helps animals evade predators (or humans!)

It's fascinating, fact-filled and brilliant.

Charlotte's best bit: Charlotte does like the cute "weirdies" in here, but has a real soft (and slightly worrying) spot for lizards! Eesh! Mummy won't like that!

Daddy's Favourite bit: A brilliant book full of facts and figures with gorgeous colour plates on each page. Lovely!