Animal Encyclopedia Started by 9-Year-Old Boy, Finished 21 Years Later

An animal encyclopedia was started by a 9-year-old boy, who continued writing it until the book was completed 21 years later.

Josh Gabbatiss made the audacious decision to start an encyclopedia of all living things when he was nine years old, starting with corals, worms, and jellyfish.

He finally finished the project at the age of 30, more than 20 years later, and he couldn't be happier. The chimpanzee, one of the closest relatives of modern-day humans, is his last entry.

The Animal Encyclopedia from 21 Years Ago

"Josh'es Book of Animals" is an animal encyclopedia that was started in 2001 by South London-based climate journalist Gabbatiss. He said that while his grammar and drawings have improved significantly, his handwriting has remained "pretty terrible."

He recently revealed the format of his finished work on Twitter, recalling that he had taken inspiration from "rival" animal books.

Instead of starting with the large charismatic species, Gabbatiss claimed that it was clear that he was committed to the project for the long haul because he started with corals, then worms, and other creatures of a similar nature.

According to Yahoo News, there are 118 pages total in the book, which are broken up into six sections that cover invertebrates, followed by fish, amphibians, then reptiles, birds, and mammals. In case any of his readers wanted to search for a particular term, the nook includes definitions and terminology along with an index at the end of every section.

The 9-Year-Old Boy Who Wrote

Growing up in west Oxfordshire, Gabbatiss claimed he worked on the book nonstop from the age of nine through his adolescence.

He quickly covered fish, moving on to amphibians, and reptiles before moving on to birds, which was probably his weakest subject. To make up for the empty space, he claimed that the section was very text-heavy.

His mid-teens to late teens is when other things began to interfere. He said that there was a time toward the end of his adolescence when it was a little more sporadic because he got distracted.

According to Oxford Mail, although he completed the majority of the mammal chapters, the book was put aside during his university years with only a few pages remaining. The animal book, according to Gabbatiss, is too valuable to relocate.

21 Years Later...

He dove back in and continued to work through some of the more obscure mammal groups, such as tree shrews and flying lemurs, during the Covid lockdown.

Then he put it back on the back burner once more until last month, when he finally announced on Twitter that his two-decade project was finished with the last drawing of a chimpanzee. He also called out to anyone who would like to publish his book to just let him know.

It demonstrated, according to Gabbatiss, that youthful interests should not be dismissed. He added that He knows that in many ways, he still feels the same way about these things (animals) as he did back when he was nine, so it feels especially special to him.

He claimed that the response to his book had been fantastic and that many readers had remembered their own childhood obsessions.

Or, as stated by Gabbatiss, people are discussing the current obsessions of their kids, which he finds to be really adorable, such as how their kid is really into dinosaurs or something similar, The Guardian reports.