Super Bugs

by Michelle Meadows, Bill Mayer (Illustrator)

Overview

Kids who like insects, superheroes, and good fighting evil will love the Super Bugs!

The Super Bugs help insects when they are in danger!"Antennae up, eyes down.Buzzing all around the town.Super Bugs, Super Bugs, mighty, mightySuper Bugs!"These heroic insects are ready to fly in and lend a helping hand or wing! The Super Bugs spend all day doing good, and when the day ends..."To the hideout -- cozy nest. Even heroes need to rest."Young insect enthusiasts will enjoy the fun facts for all nineteen insects in Super Bugs: ants, beetles, bumblebees, butterflies, caterpillars, cicadas, cockroaches, crickets, daddy longlegs, dragonflies, fireflies, fleas, grasshoppers, houseflies, mosquitoes, moths, spiders, stinkbugs, and termites.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545687591
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	06/28/2016
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	22 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Bill Mayer is the illustrator of A Walk in the Rain with a Brain, Hide and Sheep, and The Monster Who Did My Math. He lives with his wife in Decatur, Georgia. Visit him online at thebillmayer.com.
Michelle Meadows is the author of Hibernation Station and Pilot Pups. She lives in Delaware with her husband and son. Visit her online at michellemeadows.com.

Editorial Reviews

04/11/2016
Meadows (Piggies in Pajamas) and Mayer (Hide and Sheep) envision tiny creatures engaged in big, heroic actions as red-caped bugs assist insects in need. In an opening note, Meadows explains that “not all insects are ‘true bugs’ in the scientific sense” (true bugs include cicadas, aphids, and bedbugs), but her heroes aren’t picky, saving roaches, bumblebees, and more. While true bugs have beaklike mouthparts used for piercing and sucking, Mayer opts for cuteness with his roundheaded, big-eyed bugs: one wears a safety patrol sash made from a blade of grass as it helps a parade of insects cross the street; another swoops in to save a grasshopper from a falling tomato (“Insect shopper, green grasshopper./ Save her from a whopper bopper”). Bouncy rhymes carry readers forward swiftly, though the repetitive chorus isn’t all that punchy (“Antennae up, eyes down./ Buzzing all around the town./ Super Bugs, Super Bugs,/ mighty, mighty Super Bugs!”). Still, many readers will be happy to lose themselves in the rich autumnal colors and retro, Mighty Mouse–style antics of Mayer’s gouache paintings. Ages 3–5. Author’s agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (June)

Publishers Weekly

06/01/2016
PreS-K—Emergent readers will enjoy the colorful illustrations and lyrical refrain in this rhyming picture book. The text is simple and focuses on how the super bugs are able to protect various insects from harm. Whether they are rescuing mosquitoes from a frog's quick tongue or saving a grasshopper from a giant falling tomato, the superheroes are always able to swoop in and put things right. "Antennae up, eyes down./Buzzing all around the town./Super Bugs, Super Bugs,/mighty, mighty Super Bugs!" This book is a nice addition to a classroom library to use when introducing insects and other bugs in nature. The larger-than-life gouache illustrations of the bugs' adventures allow children to see the hidden world of the forest and will pique their interest in what happens beneath our feet. VERDICT A quality book to use with very young and emergent readers. Sure to appeal to superhero fans, too.—April Sanders, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL

School Library Journal

2016-03-16
A simple, rhyming text describes one day in the life of bugs with enormous eyes and red capes as they save many other insects from harm. Orange front endpapers and green rear endpapers sport yellow, comical outlines of various bugs with such facts as "ANTS carry many times their own weight!" (This ant raises a dumbbell.) Fine print on the copyright page explains that "true bugs" have a proboscis and also gives technical information about the colorful artwork. The art rarely shows proboscises, but then again, it shows such things as roaches playing baseball. The first double-page spread reveals three heroic bugs in capes and begins a litany that repeats in between other verses throughout: "Antennae up, eyes down. / Buzzing all around the town. / Super Bugs, Super Bugs, / mighty, mighty Super Bugs!" The rescues include saving a stinkbug from falling, pulling ants and termites from a fire, and pushing a grasshopper away from a "whopper bopper"—a large tomato. In addition to the repeated chorus, there are other catchy phrases, such as, "Beetles cheer, never fear." After a long day of heroics, colors fade to twilight tones and fireflies blink goodnight—too quick a conversion after many pages of vibrant color and intense activity. Moreover, the comical cuteness both does away with two of the insects' limbs and makes it hard to distinguish stinkbug from cricket from roach, leading to critter fatigue. Not captivating but fun for some. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews