Small and Tall Tales of Extinct Animals
Age 6+
History & The Past: General Interest
A fascinating journey around the world of extinct animals, combining cartoons with naturalist drawings, and mythology with science.
Did you know there was once a beaver that was two metres long? That the elephant-bird really did exist? And that the dodo once had a life beyond the pages of Alice in Wonderland? Have you heard of the megatherium, the glyptodon or the tratratratra?
Through legend and mythology, anecdotes and scientific facts, the authors tell fascinating stories of the strange animals that disappeared before our time. The book is a tragicomedy, and a mine of information for everyone interested in the animal world.
Creators
Damien Laverdunt was born in 1978. He lives and works in Paris as a writer and illustrator and teaches applied arts at the Lycée de Sèvres.
Hélène Rajcak was born in 1981 in Paris. She lives and works in Paris as an illustrator. She studied illustration at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris and has also trained as a textile designer.
Reviews
A book to keep for years.
The Guardian
An appealing combination of fact and fancy…A handsome and useful work.
Kirkus Reviews
This splendid, oversize encyclopedic study of extinct animals handles a potentially depressing subject without hectoring or mawkishness.
Publishers Weekly
The writers, who have been advised by the National Museum Of Natural History in France, have put together a (hardback) book which is exquisitely illustrated and full of weird and wonderful animals that are, alas, no more.
The Telegraph
