ReadItDaddy's Second Book of the Week - Week Ending 7th October 2016 - "Illuminature" by Rachel Williams and Carnovsky (Wide Eyed Editions)

Our Second Book of the Week this week once again uses a rather neat trick or three to bring stunning animals and their habitats to life...
It sometimes feels like we've seen a lot, and I do mean an AWFUL lot of animal encyclopaedias over the last few years.

Stunning though they all are, we've always been impressed by books that manage to put across their subject in a meaningful but also a really neat new way.

In "Illuminature" by Rachel Williams, with illustrations by Carnovsky, we have an amazing device to help us uncover animals that thrive in the hot sunlight of the day, the cool shade of night, and also the amazing plant life that they use as cover, or even food.

"Illuminature" comes with a strip of three coloured lenses (a bit like the 3D glasses in our other Book of the Week this week) that 'reveal' a different scene on every page. Red, Blue and Green lenses show and hide the content on the page as you look through...

Pages may look like a muddle until you slide one of those lenses over your eyes and..BAM!

Pages look a little confusing at first, but using the lenses, you'll be able to filter out the different coloured designs, showing the daylight animals, nocturnal animals and the plant species in each scene.

The book thoughtfully follows up with fascinating facts on each of the animals to compliment the slightly eye-boggling coloured spreads...

Cool etch-like illustrations in monochrome shades give your eyes a bit of a break!

The secret of engaging children with books like this is to wow them visually, before introducing tons of interesting facts and curiosities about each animal and plant species.

This book balances the wow factor of the lens idea with some really fantastic content beautifully put together in a way that doesn't talk down to smart kids.

Your coloured windows to an amazing hidden world!

If you are after a brilliant fact-filled animal book but also want a bit of 'wow' factor, "Illuminature" is utterly stunning stuff.

Charlotte's best bit: Finding all the nocturnal animals in each scene with the blue lens.

Daddy's favourite bit: Such a brilliant idea to use this relatively simple but hugely effective trick to bring a book to stunning life. "Illuminature" is the sort of book that will instantly win over kids and lure them in to explore and learn.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Wide Eyed Editions)

"Illuminature"

Written by Rachel Williams

Illustrated by Carnovsky

Published by Wide Eyed Editions

Publication Date: 6th October 2016