Cricket in the Thicket: Poems about Bugs

There are many things young children really love. Two of them are bugs and poems. This enchanting book has twenty-nine poems about different bugs. All kinds of bugs are represented — from honeybees to cockroaches, from grasshoppers to fireflies, from termites to monarch butterflies. With internal rhyme and perfect end rhymes and meter, author Carol Murray will charm young readers with lines like these: “Grasshopper Green is a munching machine. / He is built with precision and flair. / His hind legs are long and exceedingly strong, / like two springs as he zings through the air.” In addition to the wonderful poems, each is accompanied by a text box with some interesting factual information about the subject. There are also three pages of back matter with additional paragraphs of information about these interesting creatures. Illustrator Melissa Sweet has created delightful pictures of these bugs at work with lots of fun details. The colors she uses are somewhat muted, bringing an extra dose of gentleness to this sweet book. This will be a favorite of youngsters as well as parents and teachers and will engender cries of “Read it again, please!”