Dieter Braun's "Wild Animals of the South" is a beautiful book that aims to tell us about animals of the southern half of the globe - how and where they live, what they look like and what they eat. However it doesn't quite live up to this promise. Instead of covering the whole of the southern hemisphere, this book only covers Africa, South America, Asia, Australia and Antarctica. New Zealand and the Pacific Islands are excluded with only the South Island of New Zealand appearing, as an un-named blob, on the map at the beginning of the book. Thus there are no Orang-utans from Borneo, no Bird of Paradise from New Guinea and no Kokako or Kiwi from New Zealand. Also, while for many animals the text does tell us about how they live, other animals are pictured and named but no further information is given.
However, the pictures are stunningly beautiful works of art in a slightly geometric style. I'm sure many children will spend hours looking at this book, enjoying the pictures of rhinos, lions, toucans, kangaroos and dugong and not caring about what might be missing. Like all good nonfiction books, "Wild Animals of the South' contains an index, but it is of very little use since it simply lists the animals, in the same order they appear in the book, along with a smaller copy of the original picture. ( )