Wasps at Home

School Library Journal

Gr 4-6-- Closeup, full-color photos of exceptional clarity and fine composition highlight this uneven introduction. Focusing alternately on paper wasps and baldfaced hornets, Lavies examines the life cycles of social wasps. However, although the text is clearly written and competently organized, it omits some basic information. It does not describe wasps' physical characteristics, and while pheromones (chemical signals used for communication) are mentioned, there is little about the insects' senses. Few scientific terms are used; many that do appear are not defined (e.g., the process of metamorphosis and the state of hibernation are both described, but the terms are not mentioned; the terms ``sperm'' and ``ovaries'' appear but are not defined, etc.). There is no glossary or index. The section on what happens to unfertilized eggs contains a comment that smacks of anthropomorphism (``A strong queen is also a tyrannical one, denying reproduction to her worker daughters.''). While the format usually has a good balance between the photos and text, there are large expanses of white space on pages near the end that give the book an unfinished look. Johnson's Wasps (Lerner, 1984) has more detailed information and is illustrated with diagrams and photographs. --Karey Weh ner, San Francisco Public Library