Bug Off! A Swarm of Insect Words - Hardcover

Cathi Hepworth, creator of the brilliant, flamboyant Antics!, strikes again with Bug Off!, a hilarious wordplay romp through the insect world. Each page features one word, such as Frisbee or Beethoven, with an accompanying offbeat illustration guaranteed to generate giggles from the younger set. The book is divided into sections: "A Real Fly-by-Night Operation" (starring bees, moths, and gnats), "Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite" (starring mites, ticks, and lice), and "The Unwelcome Houseguests" (starring roaches and ants). "Stalagmites" is illustrated with multilegged mites rising from a cave floor, "ticklish" by one tick tickling another in the Parasite Junior High cafeteria, and "descendants" by a tree--a family tree--populated with ant heads. Bug Off! is quirky, inventive, vocabulary-expanding, and dynamite! (All ages) --Karin Snelson

This witty compendium, subtitled "A Swarm of Insect Words," suggests that moths, mites and bees nest in unlikely places. Readers of Hepworth's Antics! already know the buzz: the author highlights key syllables in words like "mammoth" and "license," then provides an illustration of each term. With one word and one image per page, Hepworth conveys lots of detail in her grainy colored-pencil drawings. For instance, a frowning and antennaed "Beethoven" holds a quill pen and sheet music in his fuzzy digits. To define "beefy," a black-and-yellow fellow flexes his pecs. "Signatures" depicts tiny bewigged John Hancocks with the Declaration of Independence, and "tick-tack-toe" is a variation on the game. The "roach" pages pose the biggest challenge, and Hepworth strains to include them: "encroach" depicts plump tourist-cockroaches crowding a skinny bug in an elevator, while "reproach" presents a pest locked in the stocks. Yet even these tenuous attempts offer a useful vocabulary lesson. Hepworth's six-legged "descendants" and "behemoths" take the sting out of spelling bees, and her imaginative approach may well press readers to invent their own dynamite terminology. Ages 5-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.