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A 2025 EUREKA! Nonfiction Children’s Book Awards Silver Winner • An Indigo Heather's Pick
An enthralling exploration of all the weird and wonderful creatures that may (or may not!) inhabit our world—all packed into an engaging, informational picture book perfect for helping kids build critical thinking skills.
There's been a mix-up at the Museum. Some of the displays from the Myths and Legends exhibit have snuck into the Natural History wing! The narrator in this lively, impeccably researched tale invites readers along to help sort things out. But how can they tell fact from fiction? Animal from apparition? Monster from megafauna?
As readers explore all the truths and wonders of the natural world, sidebars throughout encourage them to think critically about things including where they source their information, unconscious bias, and the significance of storytelling in gathering knowledge. An introduction provides a helpful guide to asking questions that can help hunt down truths.
Filled with fascinating information and featuring plants and creatures from around the world including axolotls, mangrove killifish, and zombie-ant fungi, Unreal will spark joy, curiosity, and inquiry in readers young and old alike as they have fun guessing what’s real and what’s fake from spread to spread.
*A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
“To the sure delight of budding naturalists, dozens of oddball wonders take star turns here, from the fictive likes of the hoop snake and the chupacabra to the verifiably real platypus and Venus flytrap . . . a stimulating excursion along the borders of credulity.”
—Kirkus Reviews, 08/01/25
Kate Simpson is a picture book author and bookworm who loves fact and fiction in equal measure. Raised on a diet of children's fiction, it was Kate's fascination with science that led her to her first career as a chemical engineer. Kate rediscovered her love of picture books after the birth of her children and now juggles a full-time job as an engineer with her writing work. Her books feature history, science, curious kids and powerful women. Unreal is Kate's sixth children's book.
Leila Rudge is an award-winning illustrator and picture book writer living on Awabakal Country (Newcastle, Australia). She has written and illustrated over 15 children's books, including the Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book Gary. Leila's work is a mixture of watercolour and pencil, all hand-rendered onto big sheets of watercolour paper ready to be scanned into picture book pages.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Into the deep
Predators
Megafauna
Life below ground
Cryptids
Bioluminescence
Among the branches
Healing powers
Fish out of water
Plants and fungi
Hoaxes and jokesters
Animal mashups
Extreme habitats
Reptiles
It was THIS big!
Conclusion
Index