The bestselling author of Brief History of Everyday Objects explores the animals we love, the ones we make use of, and the ones that make use of us in this hilarious, informative mix of storytelling and factbook. Did you know that 32 pigeons have received medals for wartime valor? And a dog named Laika was the very first creature in space? Did you know that there is an island in Japan entirely overrun by bunnies? And—for a brief time—rats adorned with ribbons were a popular lap pet in upper-class London? In Andy Warner's Oddball Histories: Pests and Pets, you can find out more than you ever thought possible about creatures both cute and weird, both large and small, while discovering new stories about human history from the perspective of our animal companions. Did you know that bees communicate with each other using special dances? Or that a popular anime called Rascal the Racoon may be largely responsible for Japan's huge raccoon population? Packed with incredible facts and charming stories like these, this is the perfect book for curious readers.
Author
Andy Warner creates nonfiction comics. He is the author of Pets & Pests, This Land is My Land, Spring Rain, and the NY Times Best Selling Brief Histories of Everyday Objects. His books have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Korean, French and Spanish. He is a contributing editor at The Nib and teaches cartooning at Stanford University and The Animation Workshop in Denmark. His work has been published widely, including by Slate, American Public Media, Popular Science, KQED, IDEO.org, The Center for Constitutional Rights, UNHCR, UNRWA, UNICEF, Google X and Buzzfeed. He was a recipient of the 2018 Berkeley Civic Arts Grant and the 2019 and 2021 Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park Artist-in-Residency. He works in a garret room in South Berkeley and comes from the sea.
