Anyone who insults the gods or the king of a city state must expect revenge. In Greek dramas, everything happens for a reason. However ingenious these tales may be, this means it can take a long time for the action to get going. If you want to hear the captivating love story of Theseus and Ariadne, you need to have quite a lot of patience before the highlight of the story comes: the labyrinth and the monster.

Linda Dielemans takes her readers to the bottom of the North Sea, where around a million years ago there were forests and people roamed around. This passionate archaeologist alternates between fascinating non-fiction chapters and exciting fictional accounts. Supported by Djenné Fila’s evocative pictures, this results in a vivid depiction of the place known as Doggerland.

‘A history of humankind without animals would be an incomplete history,’ writes Joukje Akveld. ‘That’s why this book is about them. And because we humans have already told our story often enough, it is the animals themselves who are doing the talking here.’ This original premise results in twenty-nine fascinating and colourful animal testimonies in words and pictures, which take the reader from the Botswana of 200,000 years ago to present-day South Africa.