I can imagine having spent a lot of time with a book like this between 3rd and 5th grades. Davies is in good form as the zoologist giving me the clear facts about predators and venoms, including how each animal would be dangerous to humans as well as its more natural prey. Layton's illustrations provide comic relief with plenty of gallows humor. He doesn't always use the same grim jokes, but some of the more over-the-top ones made me laugh out loud while saying 'oh, no' at the same time. That's always an interesting aesthetic repsonse! (Look at the zebra/crocodile page when you get a chance.)
Only small portions of the text are represented in the illustrations (and the relationship is purely 1-1 symmetrical). So there's a lot to be learned from reading text without much relationship to the illustrations (beyond their tone-setting function).