The Most Important Animal of All

‘What is the most important animal of them all?’ Now that is something really difficult to decide but it’s what a primary teacher asks her class to bear in mind at the start of their new term, a term during which the children are going to be learning ‘all about animals’. To that end the classroom has been refashioned with the book corner now a jungle, there’s a small world ocean on the floor replacing the mat and large butterflies dangle from the ceiling. Just as their teacher had said, the children do learn many amazing things about the animal kingdom including what happens during the life-cycle of a butterfly, how fish breathe, why penguins are classed as birds yet cannot fly.

As the term draws to a close seven children are asked to nominate the animal they would give the ‘most important animal’ title to and to justify their choice to the other class members.

The choices range from George’s elephants, the biggest of Earth’s land creatures, shapers of their landscapes and spreaders of seeds, through to Grace’s tiny krill, the crucial food for whales in Antarctica as well as other sea animals. Might it though be one of the other nominees: Nimmie’s bees, the key pollinators of multitudes of flora, with some being creators of honey too. Or perhaps sharks for their role in maintaining the balance of ocean populations, beavers creators of watery habitats and dam builders extraordinaire. Then what about bats, nocturnal pollinators and predators that have a vital role in eating insects that would feed on cocoa beans for example? And what about tigers? Each child sets out a powerful case but which would you choose?

There’s such a wealth of information in this highly engaging book, be it in the main narrative, the fact boxes around the illustrations and photographs, or the visuals themselves. Scientific topics such as interconnectedness, ecosystems, food webs, and a life-cycle, deforestation, threatened animals and extinction are presented using appropriate vocabulary be it in labels to illustrations, in the main text, the penultimate spread explaining ‘keystone species’, or the ‘find out more’ page.

Endorsed by the British Ecological Society, this narrative non-fiction book would be excellent both as part of a primary class topic and for an individual with a burgeoning interest in ecology.