Skip to main content

Bug Patrol



Bug Patrol
by Denise Dowling Mortensen, illustrated by Cece Bell
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Unpaged.  Picture Book.

     Captain Bob patrols the streets of Bugland holding coffee and a cruller in two of his right "hands" and resting one of his left appendages on the steering wheel.  His first call is a Code Eleven--unruly ants swarming a donut.  Captain Bob lines them up and tells them to share.  Subsequent calls take him to beetles bumping in the parking lot of the Mall.  Speeding spiders on low-riders are probably his most hazardous call.  Off he speeds "Weee-o Weee-o Weee-o Woo," corners the miscreants, gives them a fine and a lecture, and goes about his day until its time for him to "Hurry home to my nest.  And the bugs that I love BEST!"  Officer Bug is a great guy who keeps his insect community from descending into anarchy.  Kids will love the rhyming, repetitive text and maybe the gross-out factor of roaches being relocated from a Roach Motel ("this place stinks!") to the pleasant acreage of the landfill.  Some fun.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...