Review by Booklist Review
This engaging picture book does have bugs and a snake, a frog, a couple of worms, and one very slow slug. Readers are invited to use their imaginations as various visitors alight, hop, slime, or crawl their way across the pages. As each critter arrives, there's a brief descriptive sentence or two, including specific modes of locomotion, and then readers need to puff, tip, dangle, shake, or flip pages to encourage guests to move on. The uncluttered pages prominently feature each animal in turn. Vivid colors and black outlining highlight subjects against solid backgrounds, with occasional leaves and flowers framing pages. Appendixes provide a little more in-depth information and suggestions for age-appropriate follow-up activities. Very young readers will enjoy the gentle flow of the story while shaking the book, and older bug-enthusiasts should be engaged by the details. Perhaps not the greatest option to read in bed as a good-night story, this would make an excellent choice for storytime or as an introduction to units on insects and amphibians.--McBroom, Kathleen Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Several small animals commonly considered bugs, as well as a snake and a frog, supposedly land on this book and then leavefor a variety of reasonseach using its own special method of locomotion.Crisp outlines and vivid colors depict the animals in meticulous detail, from the snake's scales and the worm's rings to the markings on the backs of spider and frog. Each page has a pleasant, solid-colored background, against which each animal and its shadow are clearly displayed. Simple sentences are directed at readers, with the pretense that real animals are landing on the book and must be gently removed. Regarding the worm: "Let's push it off. No squishing." As each animal leavesby its own volition or with readers' supposed helpa two-word sentence describes the animal's movement, as in "Grasshoppers hop." Playful typography reinforces the motion, as in the slightly higher placement of the "o" in "hop." There is underlying humor, as readers follow a six-page trail of slug slime, and the text reads, "Slugs slide. But not very fast." More humor arrives in the form of the returning snake, whose very presence sends the sticky tree frog away ("Good-bye, frog"). Endnotes give more detailed, but still kid-friendly, explanations of all the animals' movements, and there are two pages of additional activities for teachers and parents. This simple, interactive book about the appearances and movements of things that creep and crawl is elevated by its insistence that all creatures deserve to be respected and handled with care. (Informational picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
