Well-Schooled Fish and Feathered Bandits is a good starting point, both for science writer Peter Christie (it’s his first book) and for young people beginning to look at the extraordinary world of animal learning and behaviour.

Animals learning complex behaviour from each other is a new idea and, as Christie points out, much more widespread than most of us recognize. The examples in Well-Schooled Fish and Feathered Bandits are collected in an introduction and conclusion and six chapters, which look at activities in different categories such as mating, eating, making tools, and so on.

Every page has a well-captioned illustration, consisting of a striking photograph of one of the animals being discussed or a simple cartoon showing behaviour. Illustrated sidebars highlight particularly interesting learned activities, such as the orca’s habit of snatching young seals from a beach. This is a lively, visually interesting format that presents information in easily digested chunks.

The book is slightly mistitled in that it deals with the actions animals learn from each other rather than the ways they learn. However, some of the behaviour is truly wondrous — for example, whales learning new songs and chickens becoming cannibals. A useful index and impressive Further Reading and Bibliography sections will lead interested kids – with adult help – into more detail.

This well-designed and clearly written book covers a little-known aspect of animal behaviour and, as such, stands out from others in its genre. It will appeal in its own right to the target audience and will also form the basis for much assisted learning for many budding naturalists.