Flanimals is a book of not-quite-real animals, which has been created and compiled by Ricky Gervais. Flanimals is the first in a currently expanding series and features characters originally designed to entertain a younger relative. Ricky invites us into his wild and creative imagination which can only be said to appeal to people of all ages. The book is unlike anything Gervais has done before, so don't be put off if you're not a fan of Gervais' other work. The book, however, does contain that unique sense of humour that can be found in The Office, and Extras.
The book is made up of 3 chapters: Chapter 1 - Spotters guide Chapter 2 - Flanimal behaviour Chapter 3 - Flanimal testing
Before chapter 1 is a very short prologue: "There are a few things you need to know about Flanimals. And when you do, I'd keep them to yourself if I were you."
Chapter 1 contains 26 full colour Flanimals. Each page has a large picture of the Flanimal, along with its 'common' name, Latin name, and a description of its habits and lifestyle. All of the Flanimals have a very pointless lifestyle, with Gervais making them sound even more pointless and ridiculous than they already would. Each description encapsulates
Gervais' humour with open-ended question and insults. Its amazing the amount of humour he can fit into a few lines of text. Whilst the common names of the Flanimals are hilarious, its worth the time to read the Latin names which are more outrageous, and appear just below the common name.
Examples: Wobboid Mump - 'Lumpus Chuck-Goggler' One of the most useless organisms in the universe. It is basically an eye in jelly. It spends most of its time looking around trying to find reason in its existence. It never finds it as it is blind.
Munger Fuddler - 'Flange Snatchling' Despite being too mungey for its own good, it persists in fuddling everything it sees. Eventually gets battered when it fuddles the wrong thing.
As you can tell, the humour used in this book works on many different levels making it appeal to a vast audience. The silly names will enchant younger children whilst the more sinister and rude innuendos hidden throughout the book will appeal to adults alike.
Chapter 2, like the previous chapter has large full colour pictures on each and every page. There are 21 pages dedicated to the behaviour of the Flanimals, although that doesn't mean that there are 21 separate behavioural traits listed, as some cover a double page spread, with larger pictures. This chapter shows the development of the Flanimals, along with their interactions with the other Flanimals. Not all Flanimals are covered equally in this chapter, with more information being given to the more interesting, and stranger Flanimals. Occasionally Gervais also throws in a statistic or two, which I found to be intriguing.
Examples: Herd of Blunging Blunging are social creatures and live in herds. When fully grown they are the fastest of the Flanimals, so fear no predator. Baby Blunging are not so fast, and taste brilliant.
On the double page spread covered by one picture I would have liked there to be more text. Despite the pictures being very funny, and attractive with their bright colours, I would have preferred there to have been more information about the picture. On the other hand, the picture could have taken up less space to allow a second picture with information to be added.
This section can be a bit confusing unless you have read chapter 1 thoroughly, I found I had to keep flicking back to chapter 1 to refresh my memory of that Flanimal. Either that or I just didn't have a clue what was what.
Chapter 3 tests you memory of the information you have been given in chapters 1 and 2. There are 21 questions in this section, which range from identifying the owner of footprints to knowing what adds flavour to a Gum Spudlet. This chapter is just 4 pages long, with one page being dedicated to the answers. This chapter is short, and isn't very colourful, so may not appeal to the younger readers. I didn't get many of these right the first time around as the questions require you to remember even the minor details.
At the back of a book is a Flanimal scale chart. There is a silhouette of a human along with the 26 Flanimals in the book with their names beneath them. A lot of these are much bigger than I had imagined although a few were far smaller. This is helpful to those who like to imagine the Flanimals instead of just looking at the pictures in the previous chapters. The Flanimal silhouettes are also printed on the inside of the front and back covers.
At the very is a short epilogue 'I'd love to tell you about the Bletchling, the Gernloid and the Weezy Tong Nambler, but this book ends here…'.
The book is very colourful which will appeal to children in particular although there is no reason why adults shouldn't enjoy this just as much. The book is also very easy to read for children since descriptions are all very short and don't use any sophisticated language. On the sleeve of the book is also a short section about Gervais, along with his photo. The sleeve is also very colourful, with 2 large colour pictures of Flanimals, and some 'quotes'.
"I read this book just days before my final Flanimal exam and passed with flying colours. Thank you Mr Gervais." "It sent my child mental. You haven't heard the last of this."
Jacket design is by Dave Crook and illustrations by Rob Steen.
This book is available in hard-back, and was first published in 2004 with a UK RRP of £9.99 For those that want it, the ISBN is 0-571-22077-0
If you enjoy this book, there are also currently 2 more additions in the series, which are 'more Flanimals' and 'Flanimals of the deep'
And remember…. Loads of Flanimals were hurt during the making of this book!!
Apr 14th, 2007
exceptional by (13%):
very helpful by (87%):
