Animalia (book)
Encyclopedia
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
by Graeme Base
Graeme Base
Graeme Rowland Base is an Australian author and artist of picture books. He is perhaps best known for his second book, Animalia published in 1986, and third book The Eleventh Hour which was released in 1989....
. It was published in 1986.
Animalia is an alliterative
Alliteration
In language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of Three or more words or phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to...
alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
book and contains twenty-six illustrations, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each illustration features an animal from the animal kingdom (A is for alligator
Alligator
An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. There are two extant alligator species: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator ....
, B is for butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
, etc.) along with a short poem utilizing the letter of the page for many of the words. The illustrations contain many other objects beginning with that letter that the reader can try to identify. As an additional challenge, the author has hidden a picture of himself as a child in every picture. In 1987, Animalia won the title of Honour Book in the Children's Book Council of Australia
Children's Book Council of Australia
The Children's Book Council of Australia is a not for profit organisation which aims to engage the community with literature for young Australians. The CBCA presents annual awards for books of literary merit, for outstanding contribution to Australian children's literature.-Awards:The first...
Picture Book of the Year Awards. In 1996, a tenth anniversary edition was released.
Base also published a colouring book version for children to do their own colouring.
A television series
Animalia (TV series)
Animalia is an Australian children's television series based on the 1986 picture book of the same name by illustrator Graeme Base.-Development:...
was also created, based on the book, which airs in the United States, Australia, Canada, the UK, and Norway. It also airs on Minimax for the Czech and Slovak Republics.
Graeme Base also created a series of riddles relating to hidden objects within each of the illustrations written especially for the wall frieze.
In 2010, The Base Factory and AppBooks released Animalia as an application for iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch.
Websites to Animalia (Book):