Genius Noses: A Curious Animal Compendium

by Lena Anlauf, Vitali Konstantinov (Illustrator), Marshall Yarbrough (Translator)

Overview

"Five stars out of five." –NY Journal of Books

A Bank Street Best Book of the Year, 2024
A Eureka! Nonfiction honor book

An illustrated collection about animal noses and their amazing functions! Early STEM has never been more fun. Everything kids ever wanted to know about animal noses around the world!

This special collection of animals takes us around the globe and amazes us at the curious diversity of nature. Whether it’s the musk weevil, the elephant, the pig, or the saiga antelope— they all have wonderful noses. In addition to a wide array of functions, noses tell us a lot about animal habits and habitats.

Author Lena Anlauf has compiled the most exciting facts and stories about noses from the animal kingdom, while illustrator, Vitali Konstantinov, introduces us to the individual animals in impressive portraits—with wit and attention to detail.

Which animal can smell underwater? Which one uses their nose as a snorkel? What can animals do with their noses besides smell? Readers will find out this and more in this entertaining collection filled with surprising and unusual facts.

“The book gives fascinating insights into the world of animal noses. Whether small, large, round or star-shaped, you learn a lot of new things here. The wonderful world of noses is clearly explained with beautiful illustrations.” –Pascal Marty, Zoo Zurich

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735845350
Publisher:	NorthSouth Books
Publication date:	09/19/2023
Series:	Genius Animals
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	6 - 12 Years

About the Author

Lena Anlauf was born in the Ruhr region of Germany. She studied book studies and philosophy in Mainz and Leiden and completed a further education course on pedagogy of literacy and literature as well as a remote course on children’s and young adult literature at the STUBE in Vienna. Today she lives in Marburg, works as editorial director at the kunstanstifter verlag, researches historical picture books, writes and designs her own book projects, and puts on readings and workshops for children. Genius Noses was her children’s book debut.

Vitali Konstantinov was born in Ukraine. As a child he saw the desman at the natural history museum and was fascinated. Vitali studied architecture, graphic art, painting, and art history, and has taught illustration courses at universities in several countries as well as numerous workshops for children. His work has been exhibited extensively, has received many prizes, and has been published in forty different countries. Most recently he was nominated for the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis. Today Vitali works as a freelance illustrator and author and lives in Marburg. He drew the illustrations for Genius Noses and Genius Ears with drawing ink and colored pencil on watercolor paper.

Marshall Yarbrough is a writer, translator, and musician. He has translated works by Ulla Lenze, Norman Ohler, and Wolf Wondratschek, among other authors. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

"This appealing nonfiction book invites readers to consider interesting noses in the animal kingdom. . . . From endpapers to index, there's a lot of information here. Part of the appeal is the way the information is presented. Cameo pictures of animals and text in green font are easy to parse."

Youth Services Book Review

"Informative and thoroughly 'kid friendly' in organization and presentation, "Genius Noses: A Curious Animal Compendium" is an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to family, elementary school, middle school, and community library Pets/Wildlife picture book collections."

Midwest Book Review

"Readers can dip in and out for a plethora of engaging and even silly facts."

Booklist - Angela Leeper

"This is a great book to pique kids’ interest in the wild wonders of the animal kingdom, highlight how one specific animal sense helps each animal survive and thrive while changing their environments (pollination and seed dispersal, for instance), and provide a broader sense of how animals are classified. Plus, the illustrations, rendered in ink and colored pencil on watercolor paper, are fabulous!"

author, A River of Dust - Jilanne Hoffman

"Genius Noses is a small encyclopedia of fascinating animal facts with cute engaging pictures and illustrations featuring each animal. Kids who are interested in unique animals will enjoy studying its pages. "

Kiss the Book blog

"Genius Noses is a winner for older kids. Five stars out of five.”

NY Journal of Books

"this is a book for the curious, one that may well interest readers, younger and older alike, in learning still more about olfactory organs and their many uses."

Infodad

★ 2023-06-08
A prodigious portrait gallery of prominent proboscises.

Digging deeply into the world’s wild animal populations, Konstantinov picks a plethora of notable noses to depict in face-forward postures, from members of the elephant and pig families on down to elephant seals, anteaters, star-nosed moles and molelike desmans, shrews and their cousins, aptly named Pinocchio frogs of New Guinea, Madagascar leaf-nosed snakes, and snout beetles. Not to mention, of course, koalas, tapirs, and male proboscis monkeys with their “giant schnozzles.” Along with both common and scientific identification labels Anlauf provides notes on each creature’s geographical distribution and whether it is macrosmatic (meaning its sense of smell is how it makes its way through the world) or microsmatic (its sense of smell is secondary to other senses)…even when, as with insects, the “nose” isn’t what does the smelling. She also highlights each schnoz’s distinctive feature or structure, such as the ratlike Solenodon’s ball-and-socket joint or the unusual way the star-nosed mole detects underwater odors. Translated from German, the entries are arranged loosely (“flying creatures,” “ground-dwellers,” “water creatures,” etc.); there’s an index by species name, a graphic size chart at the end, and a world map modeled after the AuthaGraph map, showing all the continents at their relative actual sizes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

On the nose for young naturalists. (glossary, source notes) (Informational picture book. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews