More Flanimals

By Ricky Gervais and Rob Steen

  • is an English comedian, actor, writer, television producer and filmmaker.

  • is an English illustrator and guitarist.

  • in 2005.

  • 7+

Being a teacher I have to teach writing non-fiction. It can be boring for children. Most people when they hear non-fiction, they’ll think it’s not entertaining because it gives the impression that it must be there to do nothing but provide information. Like a long historical drawn out book.

But More Flanimals is fun although it pretends to be non-fiction.

The structure of this book is very ‘scientific’. We learn about the Flannimal Kingdom, Evolution, Flanatomy and Behaviour. There’s even a much needed Spotter’s Guide and a poster. I’m not complaining but the poster is a bit naff. I mean, why is it just a quarter of a poster?

After reading Chapter 1, we discussed the ‘scientific’ language and all the topics covered. This is indeed what we expect to find in an encyclopedia. We talked about the vocabulary and the difference between facts and opinion.

What else do we usually find in an animal fact book? A lot of scientific books and websites have infographics. We can find different types of these in More Flanimals.

The Flanatomy page is my favourite. I’ve adopted the phrase Think Lump and now say to them that they need to use it when doing the work.

This chapter is so funny but at the same time covers what needs to be covered in a biology text about human anatomy.

We went through all the features of a scientific text and laughed loads. I didn’t even have to ask the children to do writing. They insisted on it. Ricky Gervais and Rob Steen inspired them to make their own fact files. Check them out.