#Booky100Keepers Day 42: "The Welcome to the Museum" Series (Big Picture Press)

It's about time we had some non-fiction in this list, and what better series of books to feature than the wonderful "Welcome to the Museum" series from Big Picture Press.

These gigantic books aim to recreate the thrill (for us at least) of visiting museums, checking the exhibits and hopefully learning something new.

The series kicked off with "Animalium", a thorough and meticulously curated guide to all the creatures that stalk, wade, swim or crawl across our beautiful planet.

If you've ever visited the fascinating (but quite grisly) Natural History Museum at Tring you'll probably feel right at home with a book that puts so many species in front of you, so many creatures both familiar and unfamiliar - and presents them like a classic Victorian reference book.

In fact that theme is common to all the "Ium" books, as they're just so beautifully put together, always with a team of experts and an amazing set of illustrators to bring the 'exhibits' to life.

"Botanicum" is another favourite, like a beautiful book-based version of some of our favourite destinations such as Kew Gardens or the Batsford Arboretum.

This time an amazing collection of plant life has been brought together, from the mundane to the exotic, showing just how vibrant and diverse the planet's plant life is, and how so many different species and sub-species contribute a huge amount to our world and the preservation of life that relies on these plants to survive (including us, of course!)

Once again though the book is lovingly crafted to look like those fabulously illustrated Victorian plant-collector journals, it's brought bang up to date with new scientific knowledge of plants and their benefits, and for us the section on Fungi is awesome (as we're a bit obsessed about them to be honest!)

Each book is massive, which helps the level of engagement when you're sprawled out on the floor with these, either just browsing through or looking up a nugget of information for a school project or a piece of artwork (they are really lovely reference books that will last your kids years!)

"Anatomicum" is our favourite by far though, turning its steely gaze on our own bodies and how incredible they are, thanks to a good dig through the Wellcome Collection.

Inside-out, the book is packed with detail about the amazing biological machine that is the human body, from our skeletons to our nerves, our vital organs and our skin.

We are amazing - and this book is too, illustrated with so much detail and, like the other books, really useful if your kids are studying Biology and need a really thoroughly researched reference book that doesn't talk its subject down to the simplest levels, yet is instantly child-friendly and approachable thanks to great design and fantastic descriptions.

All of the books in the series are worth checking out, and we feel very lucky to have quite a collection of them. Non-Fiction has had something of a golden age and a brilliant revival over the course of the last ten years while we've been beavering away at this blog. Stunning books like this just show how you can 'win kids back' from their screens if the source material in fabulous non-fic is put together in the most amazing ways.

Original Review Links: 

ReadItDaddy's Second Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 1st December 2017 - "Dinosaurium (Welcome to the Museum Series)" by Lily Murray and Chris Wormell (Big Picture Press)

ReadItDaddy's Second Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 25th October 2019: "Anatomicum (Welcome to the Museum Series)" by Dr Jennifer Z. Paxton and Katy Wiedemann (Big Picture Press / Wellcome Collection)

ReadItDaddy's First Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 19th October 2018: "Planetarium (Welcome to the Museum)" by Raman Prinja and Chris Wormell (Big Picture Press)

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week Ending 12th December 2014 - "Animalium - Welcome to the Museum" by Jenny Broom and Katie Scott (Big Picture Press)

ReadItDaddy's First Book of the Week - Week Ending 23rd September 2016 - "Botanicum - Welcome to the Museum" by Professor Kathy Willis and Katie Scott (Big Picture Press)

ReadItDaddy's First Book of the Week - Week Ending 23rd September 2016 - "Botanicum - Welcome to the Museum" by Professor Kathy Willis and Katie Scott (Big Picture Press)