Insectopia is a beautifully illustrated all ages book about insects by Dr. Jiří Kolibáč and illustrated by Pavel and Pavla Dvorsky. Released 21st Nov 2023 by Albatross Media, it's 96 pages and is available in hardcover format.

The drawings are realistically rendered in color in pencil. The illustrations are anatomically detailed and the book/writing is also scientifically accurate and up to date. The author writes engagingly and accessibly, with simple language which will be easy for readers to understand.

The book includes anatomy, nomenclature, evolutionary background, and lots of interesting and educational facts on different insect families.

Five stars. Although it's billed as juvenile non-fiction, all ages will find it interesting and educational. Very young readers will probably need an adult's help, but middle school and older will find it understandable. This would make a great choice for public or school library acquisition, for home use, or for gift giving to a bug-interested youngster.

This is a gorgeous book. The full-page illustrations of each insect are stunning and detailed. The text has a ton of fascinating information.

The only trouble is that it's a much higher reading level than I was expecting. It is being marketed for "children" and "young readers" but the text is full page in two columns, dense, and written for an upper high-school or college level. This would not have been out of place in my evolutionary biology class in college, in fact.

The blurb mentions that it is written for "children age 12-15" which is itself misleading. I would at that point refer to them as teens, not children. In addition, the text is at a much higher level than what I would give to a 12-15-year-old. I'm thinking more like age 16+ just because of the denseness and complexity of the text.

I requested to read with my animal-loving 9-year-old on the basis of it being a large illustrated encyclopedia of the sort generally aimed at 8-14-year-olds, and by the mentions of "children" and "young readers" in the blurb. It is much too difficult and long-winded for him to pay attention to, however, and definitely much higher than his reading level to read on his own.

In short, it's absolutely gorgeous and fascinating - but being marketed to the wrong age group.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Albatros Media for providing an early copy for review.

This book is full of great information and gorgeous illustrations of species of insects. It’ would be great for an insect study.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher Spotlight for the opportunity to review this book prior to publication.

This is a very thorough insect encyclopedia and has awesome artwork for each section. I think any child who loves bugs would find this fascinating. I felt like it was so detailed and had a lot of information, so the length of the text may be the only drawback to this book but also is a pro in the sense of being very informative. I think that the audience of children that would read this would be 3rd to 6th grade or 7-12.

This large-format encyclopedia is a sequel to or the companion to the Atlas of Extinct Animals and another of Endangered Animals. It is about 100 pages and has beautiful full-page illustrations and other smaller ones just as the previous volumes. They are written with compact text with a lot of information technical that touches a lot of facts and scientifical knowledge, but it can be appreciated by students from a young age and adults.

I recommend teachers and educators have this collection and type of encyclopedia always available.
It doesn't have spiders... spiders are not insects. eheh
Did you know there are about 1 million insect species?
Did you know their blood is not red but full of nutrients and it's called haemolymph?
Did you know dragonflies can fly backward?
Some insects get more recognition and love from us, but even ladybugs can give others a hard time. 

This encyclopedia gives insightful knowledge and helps us understand that there is an important balance and that many insects are vital to the lives of other creatures (from plants to ourselves). The disappearance of about 75% can be catastrophic and we're already experiencing some of it. 

We are not alone even when we don't see them (some like cold and prefer ice) but they contribute to the life of our planet. And they co-operate. For example, every species of fig has its own species of fig waps trading refuge for pollination. Others are predators and control the numbers and balance, and some carrier diseases (that can also be harmful to us as well).

A very useful illustration shows a large tree with relationships between the insect species and we get to see who is closest to being cousins. 

I've learned a lot from this book that includes a lot of chapters and beautiful illustrations not only dedicated to the different insect species but to giving us an insight into their dawn of times, evolution, reproduction, body structure, co-operations between species, strangest shapes, strange habits...

Thank you, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

This book is packed full of information. Scientific (but down-to-earth), well-researched and very thorough.

Beautiful artistic renderings not only capture the insects, but also show them in their natural environments carrying out everyday activities.