If you’ve been around the homeschooling world for any length of time, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with Julia Rothman’s “anatomy” books — at least by name/sight.

There are (I believe) five now: Farm Anatomy, Nature Anatomy, Food Anatomy, Wildlife Anatomy, and Ocean Anatomy. We have the first three (which also come as a set), and these are very cool nature books.

They’re a little hard to describe. In a way, they’re kind of like little mini-encyclopedias, except they’re not “dry” like encyclopedias usually are. But they’re similar in the sense that they’re comprised of collections of entries on various topics — which, of course, are related to the titles of the various books. And they’re accompanied by Rothman’s charming drawings.

Rothman’s art style is somewhere between “cartoon” and “photorealistic,” making it a wonderfully approachable, “comfortable” style while still maintaining accuracy in depicting the workings of the natural world.

[Note: Although Rothman creates delightful illustrated children’s nature books, that isn’t all she illustrates. And some of her other artwork is quite…adult. So be cautious when searching.]

Sticker Books

All that background was leading up to the actual point of this post, which is that now there are sticker books!

The one I received to review is the Wildlife Anatomy Sticker Book, and since Wildlife Anatomy is one of the original series that I don’t have, I can’t directly compare the book-book and the sticker book for you. But in essence, these sticker books take Rothman’s drawings from the main books and gather them together into books of stickers.

I assume these are meant for kids, but this book at our house is for Mama! I expect to use it in Bible journaling, because this has such an amazing spectrum of animals across God’s creation. (I can’t even put names to them all. Isn’t the variety God created astounding?)

Wildlife Anatomy Sticker BookOcean Anatomy Sticker BookFarm Anatomy Sticker BookNature Anatomy Sticker Book

The Physical Book

The cover is…I don’t really know what to call it. It’s thick card, I guess? The book is technically a paperback, but it’s a heavier-duty cover than just a standard trade paperback. And the cover wraps around to protect the pages, but it’s not attached at the spine so all the pages open out flat.

The stickers are on white paper, and they’re cut out around the shapes of the drawings, with a small border.

Although I didn’t measure them, by sight I’d say most of the stickers range from about 1 to 3 inches, although a few are slightly larger, and there are what I would almost call “filler” stickers in between that are very small — maybe 1/3 to 1/2 inch? — of insects and flowers and some small animals like frogs and birds.

There are some spiders and snakes in here, so if that’s going to bother you, be aware. (I think I counted 20 spiders — mostly small stickers — and 8 snakes.)

These would be great for geography/culture studies notebooking. Some might be good for nature studies, although the ones in this particular book probably aren’t relevant to the observational studies of students in most parts of the world my readers are from. (Those in some of the other books, might be — like the farm ones.) Taken all together, they can also be used in notebooks or lapbooks/shutterbooks for My Father’s World kindergarten or other, similar topical studies. As I mentioned, I expect to use mine for Bible journaling. And of course they can be just for fun. (These books would make good stocking stuffers.)