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Poortvliet is a naturalist and an artist, a bit like John James Audubon. That much is true, and good. And this coffee-table book does a good job of giving us some interesting details about some interesting wildlife, including information to distinguish related species between N. America & Europe, and to tell the difference between hares and rabbits. It's earthy and honest.

My problems with it are principally two:

The cursive font captioning each sketch was very difficult for me to read, and would also be, perhaps, for children (although I wouldn't recommend this to children younger than 8 unless they already know about animals' primary raison d'etre, perhaps because they live on a farm).

And the occasional anthropomorphism was troubling, especially when crows were referred to as evil." Um, they're smart, but I don't think they're smart enough to rub their wings and cackle "Today the rabbit hutch, tomorrow the world!"

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