Endangered Animals by Tom Jackson is both a beautiful and a heartbreaking book, for obvious reasons.

As an attractive coffee table book it succeeds very well. Who doesn't love pictures of animals, and these pictures are a nice mix of mid-range shots as well as close-ups. In some ways it is the close-ups that are the most heartbreaking. If you are the type of person who loves animals individually as well as in the broader abstract sense, you look into those eyes and see sentient beings that are threatened with extinction, largely because of our species' abuse of the planet. Yes, extinction is a normal function of life on the planet, but the rate has been accelerated thanks to our greed and lack of caring for those we share the planet with.

While any good coffee table book induces a person to pick it up and flip through it, the best can generate discussion. Most spark nostalgic or fanciful conversation, which is always great fun. This one, however, may spark more melancholic conversation, which is not a bad thing if it raises awareness about what we are doing to our planet.

I would recommend this for both those who just want a beautiful book to display and for those who want a discussion starter on an important topic for the next time you have guests over.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

DK Publishing has a series of non-fiction books called Eyewitness. Endangered Animals is part of that series. This is a "dip in, dip out" type of non-fiction book. That means that you don't have to start at the beginning and read through. You can dip into this book on anywhere and read a full selection on two pages. As is true throughout this series, each two page section has an introduction and many pictures with written information about each. In this book, in addition to sections on different types of endangered animals there is information about causes, adaptations progression, human impact, and conservation.

I find these books to be visually appealing to all ages. Some of the text can be challenging for younger elementary school students, but images and structure of the books create high interest for students. ( )