Favorite Animal Nonfiction Books for Children

Full Book Lists

Animal Nonfiction Books for Children (Amazon)

Animal Nonfiction Books for Children (Bookshop)

Video Tour

You can view inside looks at a number of these books on this list on my YouTube Channel!

Be sure to subscribe to my Channel if you want to see more video inside looks of books like this!

About These Books

You can read my personal reviews of many of these books on Amazon. Note that I have included a range of style of nonfiction books. Some are encyclopedias used for reference, some are animal atlases, some are based on a specific feature (e.g. migration, animal bones, nocturnal animals), and some are narratives with educational information about animals inherent to the story.

There are a also great number of nonfiction books that are based on specific animals or animal groups. Some of my favorites for these are: Gail Gibbons books, Owen Davey books, Yuval Zommer books, Charlotte Milner books, and Jim Arnosky books (most of these are out of print so search used bookstores).

Note that for this booklist and video tour I mainly tried focus on all-encompassing books or books focused more on mammals. This is because I have separate lists for the other animal categories:

• Bird Themed Books for Children
• Minibeast Themed Books for Children
• Fish, reptile, and amphibian favorites are on my Pond Themed Books for Children list.

**Note: all of these lists above include fiction, not just nonfiction. Also, I continue to add to all of these lists as new books are published.

Most of these animal nonfiction books are aimed at elementary-aged children; however, I think Kindergarten-aged children and younger will certainly enjoy many of these as well!

If you are interested in an actual field guides for animals, I recommend the Peterson Guides (we like the Mammals and Reptiles & Amphibians) or the Sibley Guide to Birds. For field guides, though, I generally recommend finding as localized of a guide as possible for your specific region.