Amazing Butterflies and Moths ¦ Amazing Crocodiles and Reptiles ¦ Amazing Fish ¦ Amazing Monkeys

Over forty years ago, one of my bedtime favourites was Frank Buckland's Curiosities of Natural History. A prodigiously energetic late nineteenth-century naturalist, Buckland was a gifted communicator, whose simple prose brought his 'curiosities' to life as he explored everything from hippopotamus' teeth to the behaviour of a porpoise during a hansom cab ride. Led on by the bizarre and revelling in Buckland's lack of didacticism, I absorbed a lot of extra, more conventional information, for his enthusiasm was infectious and, angler that he was, he had me hooked from page one.

I now find 'Amazing worlds' doing the same thing, but the difference is that where Buckland used eloquence, Dorling Kindersley use the talents of Jerry Young, who has done all the photographs here. The formula is simple - a stunning Young photo on each of twelve spreads illustrates a lead paragraph and is surrounded by related satellite pictures and paragraphs.

Monkeys includes apes and other primates (no George Carey jokes, but plenty of other humour and never at the animals' expense). Butterflies deals mainly with the enormous variety of shapes, colours and behaviour, being a wonderful introduction to camouflage and mimicry. Crocodiles and Reptiles introduces tortoises, turtles, snakes and lizards as well as crocodilians (did you know that crocodiles swallow stones for ballast or that freshwater turtles have webbed feet?) Fish reaches the same conclusion as Buckland about mermaids - they're all fakes or imaginary.

The appeal of this series is enormous and will embrace a wide age and ability range in school and at home. True, there is little mention of the endangered status of some species featured and the index to each volume is as vestigial as an orang's tail, but then these books are intended for entertaining browsing, not research. Amazing is a word to be careful with, but it fits here, and Frank Buckland would have loved this lot.