As everyone knows, a nose is a very useful appendage. But just how useful?

In Genius Noses,* a non-fiction picture book aimed at readers ages 6-12, you’ll discover the multiple uses and benefits of the probosces, snouts and beaks of no fewer than 100 different animals!

The contents page is split into neat sections like “Happiest When Hanging Out in Trees,” which includes Pinocchio frogs and silky anteaters, and “Ground Dwellers,” such as pigs and dik-diks. It’s a tantalizing glimpse of what’s inside!

The pages that follow are a rich compendium of fun and fascinating facts, and open with “Underground Diggers” and the aardvark. Here, the focus is not on the aardvark, but rather its nose: what it looks like, how it functions, and what makes it special. The information is beautifully presented in readable, informative chunks, broken up by lively, detailed ink and pencil drawings by Ukrainian illustrator Vitali Konstantinov. You’ll know a lot more about an aardvark’s nose by the time you’ve absorbed the content.

In fact, you’ll know a lot more about all sorts of noses once you’ve read this book. Did you know that the star-nosed mole is one of the only mammals to be able to smell underwater? Or that every koala nose is as unique as a fingerprint? For those that like an extra layer of information, there’s a comprehensive glossary at the end, which includes definitions of the more complex words used in the book, such as electroreception, cloaca and osmatic. An index, with animal names in Latin and English, rounds off the title.

If you’d like to be an expert on animal noses, or simply want to know more about them, Genius Noses is the book to sniff out at your local bookstore or library.

Genius Noses: A Curious Animal Compendium
Written by Lena Anlauf
Illustrated by Vitali Konstantinov
Translated from German by Marshall Yarbrough
Due to be published by NorthSouth Books in September, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-7358-4535-0

Reviews: Kirkus (starred), Youth Services Book Review

Awards: dPICTUS 100 Outstanding Picturebooks 2023

You can buy a copy of Genius Noses here or find it in a library.*

*Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission at no cost to you.

With thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy of this book.

Laura Taylor is the founder of world children’s literature blog Planet Picture Book. She is a small business copywriter, NAATI-certified translator of French into English and member of AUSIT. When she is not writing, she is reading, and chasing after her two young children. She occasionally tweets @plapibo and posts at www.planetpicturebook.com