Pop-up Palace Pets and Other Royal Beasts

This is such a cute and interesting book, showing you lots of dfferent animals that the Royal Family have had over the centuries. 'Pop-up Palace Pets' is a little smaller than an A5 sheet of paper in height and width, and is a lovely hardback book filled with thick card-like glossy pages of colourful illustrations and text. There is a pop-up on every double page and a flap to lift with extra information underneath.This book is really very interesing and so fun with the way it is presented. Every double page is about a different type of animal that kings and queens (and their children) have kept over the years, for example there's a double page about dogs, another double page is about cats and then more exotic creatures on furthur pages. There are small snippets of text, each accompanied with some very fun illustrations which tell you all about a different animal or animals that royalty has had over the years. The snippets go from talking about our current queen, Elizabeth II all the way back to George I, Henry VIII, and earlier too. Every fact is so fun and interesting that even adults will probably enjoy reading this book, and I have to admit that I didn't know about most of the animals that the Kings and Queens of the past have owned. I especially loved learning about Queen Victoria's love of many types of animals and the fact that Henry VIII's first wife Catherine of Aragon had a pet - I won't say which though but it's probably not what you might think!Every page of the book has some lovely background colours and I have to say I love the illustrations in this book. They bring the animals to life and along with the facts, which themselves are interesting and often funny, the pictures just make me laugh all the more. The animals all seem much cuter and I can't help but think this book wouldn't be so fun without these lovely illustrations. There is a flap to lift on every double page, giving you more text to read and an additional picture. I also love the fact thar the pop-up image has its own facts written on the back of the pop-up (which in other pop-up books is often left uncoloured), so you really are getting a lot of information with each page, and all done in such a fun way.I loved reading this book and finding out about all the animals. The text was easy to read and it will amaze people of any age to read about some of the creatures that royalty has owned and some of the extra facts surrounding some of the animals. I even enjoyed the last page which was about some of the less pleasant creatures (pests) that exist in royal houses today!I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, and I'll be reading it myself again and again. Anyone who loves to find out about fun facts and especially about animals will enjoy this, and the fact its arranged in a fun pop-up way, will be all the more interesting to lots of children as they can also enjoy interacting with the book.-Thanks to Walker Books for a free copy for review.