Arthropoda Poesy: Hey There, Stinkbug by Leslie Bulion
Summertime is bugtime! Some, like fireflies and butterflies, have their charms. Some, like wasps and spiders, have their purpose, and some, like stinkbugs--nobody loves 'em, nobody wants 'em. They're better left all on their lonesome!
I think you're lost,
'cause you're walking up my arm,
But I won't tease you,
Wouldn't dare squeeze you--
Please don't trigger
Your stink alarm.
And then, there's the bombadier beetle, a most regrettable, hopefully soon forgettable creature, not glad to meet ya!
Bombadier, bombadier, bombadier beetle,
Slow on the wing, but fast on his feetle.
Blasting poor predators into retreatle,
With pure boiling hot acid it aims from its seatle.
And even those fabulous fireflies, on summer nights so delightful--when you get to know them better, they're a perfectly frightful! The poor blinkin' firefly boys are sometimes blinded by the light!
He'll fly and he'll flash and he'll wait for an answer.
From a FLASH Gal that's eager to meet him.
And up close she's likely to eat him!
For middle readers who may tend to eschew entomology, Leslie Bulion's jolly lessons on common arthropoda are great fun for summer reading that beg to be read aloud. In her twenty chapters author Bulion and artist Leslie Evans provide some delightful graphics, done by the illustrator in linoleum prints of her creepy crawly subjects Along with her highly humorous poesy, the author packs plenty of information into her Hey There, Stink Bug!
(Charlesbridge Publishing), including a glossary and bibliography of books and websites, and for poetry fanciers, also appends fascinating descriptions of the various and offbeat poetic forms used in her poetic descriptions.Labels: Arthropoda--Study and Teaching, Insects, Poetry for Children (Grades 3-7), Spiders
posted by GTC at
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(Beach Lane Books, 2014) offers all of these creepy, crawly, flitting critters, along with an appendix, What's That Bug? with thumbnail drawings and names and information about her cast of characters--thrips, nymphs, earwigs and all. But DiTerlizzi's jolly verses almost take a back seat to the absolutely cutest bugs in non-fiction picture book land, created by artist Brendan Wenzel in fabulous design and colors that are fascinating to follow from page to page. Superstar illustrator-author Eric Carle calls this one "a delightful combination of pictures and words," and Publishers Weekly stars it and says, "Readers will feel transported to a summer day, when the air is musical and life is literally buzzing."
(Sterling Books, 2012) will make young readers want to do just that.
Houghton Mifflin, 2012) (see my recent review 
and 
(Holiday House, 2010), even bugophobes can come to appreciate the variety--color, size, shape, and abilities of bugs, Dodd doesn't bother with taxonomy--insect or arachnid, they're all bugs and they're all good to our enthusiastic narrator, who enjoys the spooky aspect of some of these critters:
(see my 2007 review
(Enslow, 2010) offers some of the strangest of the spider clan--the water spider, which spins a silk nest underwater and traps air bubbles on its legs to carry home for later use, the trap-door spider who spins a silk liner and hinged door which it can flip open to snatch delicious prey, and the tarantula, which flips sharpened hairs off its belly to impale its enemies. Then there is the happy-face spider, whose back has a smiley-face in full color to fool diving birds and the raft spider which can run across the surface of a pond when its sensitive leg hairs detect a bug or small fish suitable for prey nearby in the water.
