How To Raise A Happy Genius

Imaginary Menagerie the second book in the unique Draw Your Own … series designed to help children improve their word interpretation skills, especially of the evocative ‘wow’ words that help bring writing to life, their drawing and coordination skills, and their imaginations, all while having fun.

How is this done? Well, it all starts with a character named Dr Colin, who’s a cryptozoologist. In the first book in the series, Dr Colin described the monsters that lived in his house. In this second book, Dr Colin describes the strange and wonderful imaginary animals that roam around his world, and he invites the reader to draw pictures of them based on the descriptions he provides in amusing rhymes. There’s space alongside each description where the child can draw what they think the animal looks like, and by doing this, they become the illustrators of their very own picture book. For the last animal, the child is invited to imagine their own animal, and what interesting features it might have, create their own rhyming description and then draw a picture of it. This allows the child to put what they’ve learned about word interpretation into practice. If your child enjoys this book, you can share their drawings by posting them in the comments section the end of this post.

Basic Book Information: ISBN: 978-1909832336; Date of Publication: July 2017; Recommended Retail Price (RRP): £6.99/US$8.99; Number of pages: 30. To purchase in the UK, click here.  To purchase in the USA, click here.

What Age Of Child Is It Aimed At? This book is aimed at children aged four and older. With younger children, you will need to read the descriptions for them, but older children will be able to read them for themselves. However, you will need to be available to help explain what some of the words mean within the descriptions. This should be encouraged as it is a great way to help them expand their vocabulary. As a result, this is more of an activity book to do with your child, rather than something to keep them occupied while you are doing other things.

How Long Will It Take To Read? Each description in this book will only take a few minutes to read, but it may take your child substantially longer to draw each animal from its description, and each one will probably take between ten and twenty minutes, depending on how detailed your child wishes to make their picture. With twelve animals in all, this means that this book will most likely keep your child busy for between two and four hours split over several sessions

What Core Life Skills Will It Help Develop? This book will help develop your child’s vocabulary and word interpretation skills, their coordination and drawing skills, and their imaginations.

Are There Other Books By The Same Author? Yes. This is the second book in the Draw Your Own … series, the first being Monsters In My House, which you can find out more about here. The author (Colin M. Drysdale – the founder of How To Raise A Happy Genius) has also published Zombies Love Brains (a children’s picture book about the importance of asking permission before taking things that don’t belong to you) The Little Book of Zombie Mathematics, aimed at older children and adults, a series of post-apocalyptic survival novels (the For Those In Peril series), and an anthology of short stories titled Zombies Can’t Swim and Other Tales of the Undead, but these are only suitable for young adult and adult readers. You can find details of these, and other books by Colin M. Drysdale, by clicking here (UK parents) or here (USA parents). He is currently working on more books in the Draw Your Own … series which Imaginary menagerie is part of.

Note: If you are visiting this page having already purchased a copy of Imaginary Menagerie, please feel free to post the drawings of the animals created by your child in the comments section below. These comments are moderated to prevent them being over-run with spam, so it may take a few hours for us to accept them, but we will look forward to seeing your child’s pictures.

Links To Purchase This Book

To Purchase In The UK

To Purchase In The USA

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