Bug Off!: A Story of Fireflies and Friendship

by Cari Best, Jennifer Plecas (Illustrator)

Overview

A young girl learns what it really means to sparkle in this charming picture book about the challenges and joys of making new friends.

Lightning-bug-loving Maude wants to be a member of the Bug-of-the-Month Club in her new neighborhood, and decides that her entrance speech will be about fireflies. She reads, she researches, she prepares, and she delivers a speech that all the club members love—except for hard-to-please Louise. Louise won't even let Maude in the club! So Maude vows to really let Louise have it for being so rude. But when she does, it's not in the way anyone expects.

Featuring wonderful illustrations by Jennifer Plecas, Cari Best's Bug Off! is a sparkly story about friendship, kindness, and inclusion—packed with info about fireflies, too!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466899407
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	06/25/2019
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Cari Best has written many award-winning books, among them Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queen, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; and Are You Going to Be Good?, a Parents' Choice Award winner. She lives in Connecticut.

Jennifer Plecas has illustrated over thirty books, including I, Fly: The Buzz About Flies and How Awesome They Are by Bridget Heos and the beloved Good Knight series by Shelley Moore Thomas. She is also the author and illustrator of Bah! Said the Baby, which was a 2016 CCBC Choice Selection. She lives in Kansas City.

Editorial Reviews

A useful selection in classrooms as well as a discussion starter at storytime.” —School Library Journal

“Lessons about friendship and inclusion complement lessons about insects and bugs. . .chock full of fascinating facts about fireflies and how to help them.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

06/14/2019

PreS-Gr 1-Maude is enthralled by fireflies, which she had never noticed before her family moved to the country. She sees a poster for the "Bug of the Month" club run by a neighborhood girl and is excited to join. In order to gain entry to the group, she prepares and delivers the required speech about her chosen bug and readers learn firefly facts along with her. The group leader, Louise, is appalled that Maude doesn't know the difference between a bug and an insect. She is so disgusted that Maude doesn't realize a lightning bug is not even a bug but a beetle; she abruptly tells Maude: "Time for you to bug off." A couple of months later, Louise learns the other club members liked Maude's speech and have rallied around her and her love of fireflies. Louise finally relents, and the two girls acknowledge they can learn from each other. A note from the author appears at the book's conclusion along with resources that will give readers more information on the insect. VERDICT A useful selection in classrooms as well as a discussion starter at storytime.-Maryann H. Owen, Oak Creek Public Library WI

School Library Journal

2019-04-14
Lessons about friendship and inclusion complement lessons about insects and bugs when Maude tries to join Louise's Bug-of-the-Month Club.

Maude is new to country life, and she is fascinated and delighted to see her first lightning bugs. "They sparkle like little firecrackers," she says, "but without all the noise." Maude is undaunted when she learns that the first step to auditioning for neighbor Louise's club is to prepare a speech about a bug. She happily researches fireflies at the library and presents a well-researched speech to Louise and the other club members. From the start, only Louise acts cool toward Maude. That coolness evolves into hostility when Louise insists that the other members list all the reasons that fireflies are not technically bugs…and then summarily releases Maude's 11 coddled fireflies. Sweet-natured Maude channels her anger at Louise into an inspired campaign to protect fireflies, and by the end of the story, even Louise has become an ardent champion of the cause. This is more an illustrated story than a picture book, with a text chock full of fascinating facts about fireflies and how to help them. The cartoonlike children exhibit various skin tones, hair types, and eye shapes, and they are set against uncluttered, pleasant outdoor backgrounds; Maude has beige skin and extremely curly brown hair while Louise's skin is pale and her blonde hair is straight.

Both text and art evoke the best of Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts," with a 21st-century, environmentalist twist. (Picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews