Hungry Cockroaches

Children's Literature - Carrie Hane Hung

These fast-moving, six-legged insects have been around even before the time of the dinosaurs. These creatures prefer the dank and dark environment. They are cockroaches. This invertebrate eats nearly everything; it uses its antennas to smell food and even detect poison. Find out about the life of a cockroach by reading about its life cycle and characteristics. Throughout the book, there are several, interesting, close-up color photographs of the cockroaches. The snapshots include the egg cases and nymphs along with the adult cockroaches. Some readers may need guidance with the content vocabulary and informational text features. Young entomologists seeking further information will find a few, additional resources listed in the back. One of the resources is the publisher's website, which has portals to other websites on cockroaches. Those students interested in other insects may wish to investigate the other nine books in the "No Backbone! The World of Invertebrates" series. The books in the series have a similar presentation format and would be a wonderful set of resources on a study about insects. Reviewer: Carrie Hane Hung

School Library Journal

Gr 1-4- The photography surpasses the texts in these slight introductions. Most spreads consist of a full-page sharp, color close-up of one or more of the featured insects facing five short sentences of text. In some sections, smaller photos of body parts, egg cases, etc., also appear. The images are remarkably detailed, showing, for example, wing membranes and individual hairs, on larvae and adult bodies. The titles briefly describe a few traits of insects, some distinctive physical and behavioral characteristics of the featured animal, diet, natural enemies, and life cycles, but each has a slightly different emphasis. Mosquitoes focuses on the females' need to consume blood, and names some diseases spread by bites; Praying Mantises concentrates on the creatures' unusual physiology and their effective hunting techniques; Cockroaches emphasizes eating habits and speed. Leaf-shaped sidebars offer miscellaneous information; a one-page appendix includes general facts about invertebrates and photos of four related bugs. While the information is limited, particularly on anatomy (none of the books describe insects' three main body parts, and Praying Mantises doesn't mention the insects' spines, although they are depicted in the photos), most of the texts are clearly written. Mosquitoes , however, oversimplifies in using the word "beak" instead of "proboscis." Janet Piehl's Flying Mosquitoes (Lerner, 2006), Colleen Sexton's Praying Mantises (Children's Press, 2007), and Patrick Merrick's Cockroaches (The Child's World, 2003) offer more detail.-Karey Wehner, formerly at San Francisco Public Library