Overview
Most experts believe there are over 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects digging, boring, flying, crawling, and excreting their way in and around the Earth. That’s about a billion billion bugs for every single person. And that’s not even counting their close relatives, the arachnids, which include spiders, lice, ticks, scorpions, and mites. So, if we humans really are that outnumbered, wouldn’t it be a good idea to learn a little more about our insect overlords? Helaine Becker’s latest activities guide does just that. Following the same format as her critically acclaimed Science on the Loose, which demystified science through fun and silly experiments, The Insecto-Files investigates the hidden lives of insects. It blends little-known facts about bugs with a wealth of easy-to-do activities that are as entertaining as they are educational. Packed with Becker’s trademark blend of energy, irreverence, and information, The Insecto-Files offers budding entomologists a gleeful guerilla approach to learning about the wonderful world of bugs.
Synopsis
Most experts believe there are over 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects digging, boring, flying, crawling, and excreting their way in and around the Earth. That’s about a billion billion bugs for every single person. And that’s not even counting their close relatives, the arachnids, which include spiders, lice, ticks, scorpions, and mites. So, if we humans really are that outnumbered, wouldn’t it be a good idea to learn a little more about our insect overlords? Helaine Becker’s latest activities guide does just that. Following the same format as her critically acclaimed Science on the Loose, which demystified science through fun and silly experiments, The Insecto-Files investigates the hidden lives of insects. It blends little-known facts about bugs with a wealth of easy-to-do activities that are as entertaining as they are educational. Packed with Becker’s trademark blend of energy, irreverence, and information, The Insecto-Files offers budding entomologists a gleeful guerilla approach to learning about the wonderful world of bugs.
Children's Literature
There are a lot of bugs on Earth. That is a given. But this entertaining book tells us an actual number "Most experts think there are more than 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects digging, boring, flying, crawling and pooping in and around the Earth—that's about a billion billion bugs for every single person." Facts like that will appeal to the Believe it or Not fans. Other readers will be excited by the descriptions of how and what bugs eat. The bug experiments invite the reader to become a bug by imitating the way different bugs eat. So if you have cream cheese and crackers, juice, honey and some water, and you have a grasshopper who can chew, a fly that sucks up liquid, a true bug that pierces hard exteriors and then sucks up liquid, and a butterfly with a long feeding tube, which animal will you have to pretend to be to eat which part of the picnic? The page includes directions explaining how to imitate each animal. With more than 25 bug activities, even reluctant entomologists should be willing to go a little buggy and try out the world of the smaller creatures. Illustrations show funny bugs, and funny kids undertaking bug experiments. Backmatter includes an index listing of scientific concepts, and index of the experiments, answers to the quizzes that appear in the book and an overall index. Reviewer: Amy S. Hansen