Mike Phillips (illustrator)

Horrible Geography

Redesigned front cover of Freaky Peaks (2001)
Author	Anita Ganeri
Illustrator	Mike Phillips
Cover artist	Phillips
Country	United Kingdom
Subject	Geography
Genre	Children's
Publisher	Scholastic UK
Publication date	1999–present

Horrible Geography is a series of children's non-fiction books written by Anita Ganeri, illustrated by Mike Phillips, and published in the UK by Scholastic. It is a spin-off from the Horrible Histories series (also referred to as a "sister brand") and is designed to get children interested in Geography by concentrating on the trivial, unusual, gory, or unpleasant. The series consisted of 14 titles and currently has 21 titles, including specials, activity books and handbooks.

As an answer to the question "Where do you get your inspiration from when you're writing a book [in the Horrible Geography series]?" in an interview off the Schlostic website, Anita Ganeri responded:

Well, geography is about the world around you so I spend a lot of time staring out of my window! In between staring, I get information from books, TV programmes, magazines and the internet. I am also a member of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers) in London. It's where all the great geographical expeditions of the past set out from. They have a fantastic library and lots of things belonging to explorers like Captain Scott (included stuffed penguins) and David Livingstone (including his diary, boots etc). The trouble is, finding out about deserts or poles etc is so fascinating, I tend to get carried away and do far more research than I can cram into the book.

The series wants to make geography less about boring maps, and more about " exploring dramatic and dangerous places: a wild world where nature gets nasty." The books aim to encourage children to learn more about geography.

Specials are a bigger size than the other books. They are:

In order to follow suit with the other main series in the Horrible saga - namely Horrible Histories, Horrible Science, Horribly Famous and Murderous Maths, Horrible Geography underwent a makeover, changing the covers of their books. All of the original books have been altered, though none of the Two Books in One have.