This book is rhythmic, rhyming, and fast-paced, so much like music that every time I read a certain passage, my daughter, though she was just learning to walk, would spin and dance. It’s a groove. Some of her first words were bug names like “Eyed Click Beetle” and “Buffalo Tree Hopper,” which was delightful for both of us. I think this early love helps soothe her fear of buzzing things.
Grab a magnifying glass and come hop, hide, swim and glide through a buggy undergrowth world!
Featuring insects including butterflies and moths, crickets and cicadas, bumblebees and beetles, this zippy rhyming exploration of backyard-bug behavior is sure to have insect enthusiasts bugging out with excitement!
I grew up in rural Southern Maryland, watching the bats wheel overhead at night. There were bugs under every rock, snakes winding their way through the small creek at the bottom of our backyard, and frogs that would suddenly jump up onto the glass window in the laundry room and scare the ever-living daylights out of you. I kept pet rats and caught jars full of fireflies. I live in a city now, on the opposite end of the continent, but my heart lives back home in the woods. This list is for the kids & kids at heart who love the creepy critters, the creechies who get a bad rap.
I wish I was a bug so I could live in this world. Knetzger’s book is a gorgeously illustrated graphic chapter book that clearly loves the natural world and refuses to talk down to young readers. The bugs in question are beautifully drawn, cartoony versions of themselves—Rhino-B and Stag-B live in a colorful world filled with both realistic bug facts and a quietly fantastic reality where different bugs coexist harmoniously.
A case in point: the boys regularly visit their friend and librarian, Dome Spider, who often makes comments about eating "meat" but never actually tries to eat the pair. The stakes in their world are not quite naturally realistic, but the emotions are always resonant. The boys experience a range of days—beautiful ones, sad ones, days they fight, and everything in between.
I’d love to give this book to an early reader to teach them that empathy should extend to…
Join two bug friends as they learn about the science of the world around them and the meaning of friendship in this early graphic novel series perfect for fans of Narwhal and Jelly!
Rhino-B is a brash, but sweet guy. Stag-B is a calm and scholarly adventurer. Together these two young beetles make up the Bug Boys, best friends who spend their time exploring the world of Bug Village and beyond, as well as their own -- sometimes confusing and complicated -- thoughts and feelings.
In their first adventure, the Bug Boys travel through spooky caves, work with a spider…
I am a scientist studying the evolution of insect communities for years. I am fascinated by their high degree of cooperation and how these animals make collective decisions. But I also observe social parasitic ants that raid other colonies and make their workers work for them. This tension between altruistic cooperation on the one hand and violence and war, on the other hand, is common to human and insect societies, even if they evolved in completely different ways. I hope that when you read the books I recommend here, you will be as fascinated as I am by these parallel universes and perhaps next time you will see an ant with different eyes.
Social insects live in close communities, often of several thousand individuals. We often imagine the animals as small robots that perform their tasks as if automated. But this is far from the case. Honeybees are models for the study of learning and can also make complex decisions based on previous experience. However, it becomes particularly difficult when all the animals of a hive have to agree. And bees of a swarm have this difficult task ahead of them when they are looking for real estate. They inspect the nesting opportunities in the surroundings and advertise them in the swarm.
But how do these social insects make their collective decisions? About this question goes the book, written by an expert in the field, in an exciting and easy-to-understand manner. It turns out that the animals actually listen to many opinions and vote. Who wants to know more about honeybee democracy, read…
Honeybees make decisions collectively - and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making. A remarkable and richly illustrated account of scientific discovery, "Honeybee Democracy" brings together, for the first time, decades of Seeley's pioneering research to tell the amazing story of house hunting and democratic debate among the honeybees.…
Ruby Finley is a gifted child with an interest in science...particularly entomology, or the study of insects.
One day she discovers a new species of bug. Men from the government appear almost immediately. They tell her it is an invasive species that must be eradicated, but she suspects things are not as they seem. Is it simply an ecological threat? Or a full-blown alien invasion?
I loved this book for Ruby. She’s a delightful protagonist that I think would be best friends with my own main character, Dotty Morgan.
Eleven-year-old Ruby is a Black girl who loves studying insects, much to the grossed-out dismay of her Gramma and the pride of her parents. So when she finds the weirdest insect she's ever seen in her front yard, she makes sure Gramma isn't looking and captures it for further study.
But then Ruby realizes that the creature isn't just a rare insect. It's an alien bug. And it has promptly burned a hole through her window and disappeared. Soon things around the neighborhood go missing, and no one's heard from the old lady down the street for a week. Ruby…
As a UK nature writer and amateur naturalist, I have a fascination with the natural world. If it squeaks, buzzes, croaks, hisses, or tweets, I want to know more about it. I enjoy books that are both captivating and easy to understand, and I’m at my happiest when uncovering unusual facts and exploring the rich folklore surrounding our wildlife. As a writer, I contribute to magazines focusing on nature and wildlife-friendly gardening. I also teach creative writing and have authored a book celebrating the wonders of our UK wildlife. I live in Dorset and find endless joy in observing and nurturing whatever wanders or flies into my overgrown garden.
In the summer, this book takes over from British Wildlife as my favourite reference book that doesn’t bamboozle me with science. I nearly always find the insect I’m looking for and then inevitably spend half an hour lost in details of the plants it eats or places it lives.
I wouldn’t want to be without this book, and I regularly buy it as a present for friends and family.
A photographic field guide to 1,500 species of insects found in Britain A photographic field guide to all the common and some unusual species of insects across Britain that the keen amateur naturalist is likely to spot. Approximately 1,500 species are illustrated with clear photographs chosen for their help in identification. / Details of distribution for each insect, and whether it is common or rare / Includes photographs of larvae / Each section is coded with a symbol for easy reference / Information on easily confused species / All the information on the species together in the same place Insect…
I have loved insects and other wildlife for all of my life. I am now a professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, UK, specializing in bee ecology. I have published more than 400 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects, plus seven books, including the Sunday Times bestsellers A Sting in the Tale (2013), The Garden Jungle (2019), and Silent Earth (2021). They’ve been translated into 20 languages and sold over half a million copies. I also founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity that has grown to 12,000 members.
Vicki is a fellow insect enthusiast, so perhaps it is inevitable that I would love her new book on the wonders of the ‘bug’ world. Insects are vital, pollinating crops and wildflowers, keeping soils healthy, recycling leaves, dung and dead bodies, and controlling crop pests. Love them or loathe them, we all need them. This book gives lots of practical tips as to what you can do to encourage bugs in your space.
This is a lovely little book that could and should have a big impact....Let's all get rebugging right away! Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Meet the intelligent insects, marvellous minibeasts and inspirational invertebrates that bring life to our planet. Discover how we can 'rebug' our attitudes and embrace these brilliant, essential insects, so that we can avoid an 'insectageddon' and help each other thrive.
In Rebugging the Planet, Vicki Hird shows us that bugs are beautiful, inventive
and economically invaluable. They are also responsible for pollinating plants,
feeding birds, defending crops and cleaning water systems. But with 40% of…
Like Rachel Carson inSilent
Spring,1962, Goulson warns of the catastrophic declines in
insects and the resulting threat to all life on Earth. He quotes biologist E O Wilson: "If insects were to
vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos."
Even if we're
incapable of valuing wild creatures for themselves and not merely for how they
serve us as pollinators or ecosystem managers, we're taking huge risks with our
careless approach to herbicides and pesticides; our drive for endless crops and
increased meat production leads to devastation for the natural world.
Yes, it's
grim, but Goulson, an engaging writer, intersperses the text with descriptions
of particularly unusual and endearing insects to lighten the tone - and he also
outlines how we can do better. An important and timely book.
'Read this book, then look and wonder' Sunday Times
*A TLS Book of the Year*
We have to learn to live as part of nature, not apart from it. And the first step is to start looking after the insects, the little creatures that make our shared world go round.
Insects are essential for life as we know it - without them, our world would look vastly different. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research and a lifetime's study, Dave Goulson reveals the long decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades and its…
As an award-winning author of nonfiction books for kids, I’m passionate about discovering titles by other authors that introduce a topic innovatively and engagingly. I obtained a B.S. in Biology, with an emphasis in Ecology, from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I received the 2023 Stephen Fraser Encouragement Award and a 2023 finalist for the Russel Freedman Award. I feel that it’s important to plant seeds of curiosity and encourage children to look at the world around them through a different lens. I love reading books that present complicated ideas in a way that young readers (and adults!) can understand.
This book was a really interesting read highlighting insects' role in feeding people worldwide. There were many times I said, “Eww,” while reading this, but I also had many opportunities to examine what is typical in other societies compared to what we consider normal in our own.
I love that the included recipes provide an interactive element to this book.
Most North Americans would rather squish a bug than eat it.
But mopane worms are a tasty snack in Zimbabwe, baby bees are eaten right out of the can in Japan, and grasshopper tacos are popular in Mexico. More than one-fourth of the world’s population eats insects—a practice called entomophagy. Bugs for Breakfast helps middle-grade readers understand the role insects fill in feeding people around the world.
Readers will be introduced to the insect specialties and traditions around the globe. They'll discover how nutritious bugs can be and why dining on insects is more environmentally friendly than eating traditional protein…
I am a scientist studying the evolution of insect communities for years. I am fascinated by their high degree of cooperation and how these animals make collective decisions. But I also observe social parasitic ants that raid other colonies and make their workers work for them. This tension between altruistic cooperation on the one hand and violence and war, on the other hand, is common to human and insect societies, even if they evolved in completely different ways. I hope that when you read the books I recommend here, you will be as fascinated as I am by these parallel universes and perhaps next time you will see an ant with different eyes.
I'm an ant researcher, so perhaps it's not surprising that I'm recommending an ant book. But this book is less about the short essays, which do a great job of describing the biology of these social animals, and more about the photos. Most people overlook ants because they are so tiny, but when you enlarge them, as in this book, they show their real beauty. When I received my copy, I was amazed and I have seen many ants up close. But the sheer variety of morphological structures, faces, and yes, even colors. Not all ants are black or red, there are even ants that shimmer in all the colors of the rainbow.
We notice mostly ant workers, but in this book also the males are represented, and they often look out-worldly, so not at all like we imagine ants. A book that shows the aesthetics of these social animals…
Nature's most successful insects captured in remarkable macrophotography
In Ants,
photographer Eduard Florin Niga brings us incredibly close to the most
numerous animals on Earth, whose ability to organize colonies,
communicate among themselves, and solve complex problems has made them
an object of endless fascination. Among the more than 30 species
photographed by Niga are leafcutters that grow fungus for food, trap-jaw
ants with fearsome mandibles, bullet ants with potent stingers,
warriors, drivers, gliders, harvesters, and the pavement ants that are
always underfoot. Among his most memorable images are
portraits-including queens, workers, soldiers, and rarely seen
males-that bring the reader…
I’ve been fascinated with the natural world for as long as I can remember, spending many happy hours in my childhood exploring forests, splashing in creeks, and hiking in parks with my family. Devouring books from the local library and participating in workshops at our local science center fed my interest and built a strong foundation in science. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more and more fascinated by the tension between science’s goal to neatly classify and nature’s riotous complexity. It’s the exceptions, the grey, that keep me interested and draw in my students. I am an experienced science teacher and award-winning author of books for teachers and kids.
When I picture a butterfly, I imagine a delicate, lovely creature gliding across the sky. Not a foul-smelling flying creature that feeds on rotting flesh. But that’s the secret side of our (formerly) favorite insects that we meet through our knowledgeable monarch butterfly narrator.
My students couldn’t get enough of this fascinatingly disgusting book.
Warning -- this book contains top-secret information about butterflies! Prepare to be shocked and grossed out by this hilarious and totally true picture book introduction to a fascinating insect.
Butterflies are beautiful and quiet and gentle and sparkly . . . but that's not the whole truth. Butterflies can be GROSS. And one butterfly in particular is here to let everyone know! Talking directly to the reader, a monarch butterfly reveals how its kind is so much more than what we think. Did you know some butterflies enjoy feasting on dead animals, rotten fruit, tears and even poop? Some butterflies…
