Are You A Ladybug? (Backyard Books)

Rating:
Summary: Great introduction to metamorphosis
Review: An excellent book that introduces children to the idea of metamorphosis while keeping their attention. Many people do not recognize the immature stage of the ladybug but this book treats it with humor -- when the eggs hatch, "you might think you have all made a big mistake" because of course immatures look nothing like adult ladybird beetles.

A great book for primary school science.

Rating:
Summary: Have a taste for aphids?
Review: If so, maybe you are a ladybug. The authors trace a ladybug's life from egg to maturity. Good information for primary grade insect reports. Large print and illustrations on lots of white space. The illustrator does much better with the ladybugs than the big-mouthed people featured at the end.

Rating:
Summary: And you thought your kids weren't interested in science!
Review: This book disguises the science, not sugar-coating it, but presenting it in plain kid-speak, inviting them to enter the world of the ladybug in a humourous and engaging way.

Amazon seems to have rated this book at preschool level, but for its hard-core insect trivia, I'd recommend it for any bug-lovers five and up, and their parents who LOVE finding read-aloud books that the whole family can laugh and learn from.

Rating:
Summary: A reader-friendly book packed with fun and content
Review: This book has it all--engaging, not too complicated text, GREAT illustrations and a lots of good science content. I have a huge collection of pre-school, early elem. books on insects, but none of them cover the type of metamorphosis that the lady beetle goes through, with the larvae looking totally different than the adult, and the pupae looking . . . well not like a butterfly cocoon, that's for sure, just a spotted lump! I was conducting a class for middle school teachers and we found a lady beetle pupa on a leaf and I thought in might be a gall. Luckily my book order for the early elementary class came in and I noticed the picture in the "Are You a Ladybug" book that explained what we had found. That's a pretty good endorsement for a pre-school book, that it can teach a middle school science class new information! Also, this book is very usefull to teach about how insect predators help control pest populations, since the beetles in the book eat aphids and more aphids. Again, this type of information is not often found in pre-school level books. I bought the grasshopper book too, and I like these books so much I am ordering the whole series!