Every Creature Has a Story by Janaki Lenin

From unique physical appearances to their behavioural traits, there are certain distinguishing features of each animal that they have acquired for their survival on earth. These features always have an interesting story behind them. Be it the giraffe’s long neck, the nightingale’s choice of a male partner or the devotion of mother snakes, the stories are fascinating and Janaki Lenin digs deep to share them with us by writing it in her crisp and amusing style.

Mountain Tails by Sharyn Munro

Munro stays alone in the wildlife refuge in the mountain forest that is often trespassed by the native wild animals. Through short essays and drawings, she captures the unique habits of those animals like quills, kookaburras, koalas and their ways of living that unfolded before her during her stay and their sneaky visits to her. Informative and written in a fluid and hilarious manner, the book is an enjoyable read as we get introduced to the mountain wilds and their life and love habits.

Wild Rituals by Caitlin O’Connell

Connell takes us through 10 different rituals practised in the animal kingdom by various animal communities like that of the elephants, whales and lions, and draws similarities with human behaviour. Explaining the rituals in the context of their natural habitat, the book helps us to understand ourselves and our relation to our surroundings, nature and other life forms. The accompanying pictures make it an even more engaging read as it attempts to show us the way to help and heal ourselves and live a better community life through a process of self-revelation.

Our Wild Calling by Richard Louv

The book discusses one of the most important and relevant subjects of contemporary times –– loneliness experienced by humans. It explores the cause, our tendency to alienate and the role of animals and animal therapy in combating the problem. Animals have certain innate behavioural traits that naturally help in supporting therapy and those traits in general help in human-animal bonding too. Louv explains the impact of such traits on humans and talks about healthy and happy coexistence out of affection and not out of compulsion.

Odd Couples by Daphne J. Fairbairn

In the animal kingdom, animals have some delightfully surprising pairing and mating rules. In this book, Fairbairn discusses some of these rules in detail, pointing out the male and female characteristics and strategies that animals apply in finding their mate. While the documentation of too many facts in the form of statistical charts could make the read a tad bit tedious for non-fiction readers and make it appear like a textbook, however, the facts are presented in an easy and informative manner that would be liked by anyone with an interest in the subject.

Animals Upside Down by Robin Page and Steve Jenkins

If you want to introduce your child to a variety of animals and their unique and amazing head-standing feature, this fun, insightful and interactive book is totally going to get your child excited. From jellyfish and skunks to sloths, animals having the upside-down feature have unique reasons behind it associated with their survival. Designed with pop-ups, lift-the-flaps and paper artwork, the book gives us behavioural insights into the lives of upside-down animals through simply worded lines in short paragraphs.

The Smaller Majority by Piotr Naskrecki

If too much theory and explanation in understanding a subject gets difficult to grasp at times, then this colourful photography book accompanied by survival facts of the animal kingdom and the impact of their presence on the ecosystem will help you quench your curiosity in an easy manner. What is even more unique is the subject of the book that covers the behavioural traits of the creepy crawlies and species that usually get ignored by our naked eyes.

Nocturnal Animals by Clive Roots

This book specifically talks about the whys and hows of the animals whose active hours of the day involve the time period before sunrise and post-sunset. It informs us about their unique physique and mental instincts that allow them to adapt to such a lifestyle and roam and prey in the dark hours

The Dog Who Would Be King by John C. Wright

If you are a dog lover or a dog parent, Wright’s stories will help you understand your paw buddy better through his humorous and delightful account of his experiences as a behaviourist. Not only does he share client anecdotes of their journey of handling and understanding their fur buddies but also shares his process of using animal psychology and contextualising pet behaviour with the client’s lifestyle. He offers various tips and tricks too for different situations that pet owners often have to face.

Smiling Bears by Else Poulsen

Divulging little joys, sorrows and surprises of the bear species, Poulsen, a zookeeper by profession, shares the anecdotes of her up-close encounter with this animal. She recounts her attempts at cheering up those who live life in captivity. She also shares her experience of rehabilitating them and offers readers a poignant yet insightful work to read on this subject.