Bug Off!

Gr 3–5—A few of the insects and arachnids highlighted here are a bit villainous, but the teaser title is a tad misleading. The tick sucks blood and leaves some ick, but sometimes the poet conveys more complex and even contradictory ideas of an insect. Regarding a dragonfly, she writes: "He lights upon a bit of grass/With angel wings of dark-stained glass./But alien his stranger's face,/A visitor from outer space./I wonder if he knows that he/Is monstrous to one like me." Stemple's magnified photographs offer bold, intriguing views, though the dramatic partial view of the praying mantis, for instance, in no way conveys the imagery of the poem or the accompanying factual description. As in their many previous volumes, Yolen and Stemple add a small blurb of nonfiction, varied in length and scope, to the paired poem and photograph in each double-page entry. Playful in word use, the poems employ a pleasing array of rhyme schemes in well-shaped verses and an occasional limerick. Some references will likely elude many readers. "An army of ants in their working-class pants,/'They don't stop for movies, they don't stop to dance./An all-female work force, their food stores enhance,/Toiling too hard to consider romance." The author's opening note encourages readers to write poetry, and the book might be used to spark children's creative responses to nature. The bold jacket will attract browsers while the most likely readers would seem to be children and adults who favor nature-poetry picture books.—Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston