My Book of Birds: A beautifully illustrated compendium of birds by Geraldo Valerio (Rook and Wren)

Sometimes we muse on the fact that we can subtly mention a certain type of book isn't hitting our review pile, and then like buses, three will come along at once...
Well, two down one to go - we've seen a few bird books hitting our stack and all have the same thing in common - they're gorgeously illustrated and hugely informative.

That's exactly how we'd described Geraldo Valerio's sublime "My Book of Birds" which will give younger readers a really fantastic head start in identifying beautiful bird species from around the globe.

Big or small, floating on the water or soaring through the skies, there are so many different varieties packed into this brilliant book, with loads of information on where they live, what they eat and what they get up to.

Picked out in clean graphic lines, each bird is readily identifiable (though if we could see one type of bird book, we'd love to see something that had glorious photo plates to accompany the illustrations too).

Probably Charlotte's favourite bitd, the Snowy Owl. Blame Harry Potter!

We do love the large format of this, always feels like natural history books should be gigantic, designed for sprawling out on the floor with.

We have always wondered whether this fella's beak really can hold more than his belly can

"My Book of Birds" by Geraldo Valerio is out now, published by Rook and Wren (kindly supplied for review).