Tiny Monsters: The Strange Creatures That Live On Us, In Us, and Around Us

by Steve Jenkins, Steve Jenkins (Illustrator), Robin Page

Overview

Did you know you share your home with monsters?!  In this book explore the menagerie of tiny and unusual creatures—arthropods (insects, mites, and spiders)—found in our lawns and gardens, our food, our beds, our clothes, and even our eyelashes.

You may not know it . . . but you share your home with monsters! 

Some of these monsters are so tiny that they were barely recognized, even by scientists, until the invention of the electron microscope. Although they may seem like aliens from another planet, these miniscule creatures live right alongside us.  And just about all of them are harmless—and some are even helpful! 

In his signature cut- and torn-paper style, Steve Jenkins shows readers that—seen up close—these pesky critters are as fantastic looking as any creature on Earth. This Caldecott Honor–winning duo also uses informational graphics and diagrams to demonstrate just how big the critters are, where they live, and how many there might be in your home right this second!
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358307112
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,029,758
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Steve Jenkins wrote and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative.

Steve Jenkins wrote and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative.

Robin Page has worked on numerous bestselling and award-winning titles with her husband and collaborator, Steve Jenkins, including Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

10/26/2020

This sophisticated illustrated guide to the “world of tiny, fantastic creatures that we seldom notice” provides zoomed-in views (each illustration notes the magnification) of bristly textures, jointed legs, intimidating pinchers, and eyes alongside “actual size” illustrations and brief text snippets that note remarkable facts. The pages feature creatures familiar (deer ticks, head lice, cat fleas) and more esoteric (armored snout mites, dragon springtails), rendered in Jenkins’s cut-and-torn paper collage style and presented crisply against empty backgrounds. While the creatures’ brilliant colors “aren’t always realistic” (a footnote explains that the images are based on black-and-white electron microscope images), their strange, surreal, and sometimes alarming forms mesmerize. The text provides just enough substance to spark readers’ fascination with these “tiny monsters” that live alongside humans. Includes a closing infographic with “More Tiny Monster Facts.” Ages 6–9. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Jenkins and Page team up to tackle a subject that may make your skin crawl—while introducing you to what’s crawling on your skin."—The Horn Book "Another impressive outing by a popular pair."—Kirkus "[The creatures'] strange, surreal, and sometimes alarming forms mesmerize."—Publishers Weekly "Jenkins' cut-and-torn-paper collages (some highly magnified) are particularly effective in depicting minute features that would not be visible with the naked eye."—Booklist "Noted natural science chronicler Jenkins finally full-on embraces the horror genre with his gallery of minibeasts, creatures ranging from an inch or so in length down to microscopic"—BCCB —

From the Publisher

2020-08-18
Illustrations based on microscope images reveal a world of fantastic, sometimes frightening-looking creatures who share our world.

Jenkins’ familiar collage illustrations, set on stark backgrounds, seem ideally suited for display of the monsters in miniature described in this latest offering. From the alien-appearing thistle mantis to the roly-poly tardigrade, he gives readers multiple views of faces, feelers, teeth, and claws, all highly enlarged; the creature’s overall appearance; and its original size. There are worms that live inside us, mites that live on our outsides, insects that bite us, and intriguing creatures whose lives have nothing obvious to do with ours, including a marine scale worm that lives at a volcanic vent deep in the Pacific Ocean. Each is introduced with a lighthearted headline (“It’s a Sleepover!” for the house dust mites that live in pillows and bed linens). Most creatures get a single page; a few get a full double-page spread. The extent of enlargement is always noted; some actual sizes are too small to see. An illustrator’s note explains that the electron microscope images are black and white; the illustrator used color “to highlight the forms and details” of the microscopic creatures; but the dragon springtail’s blue body and orange spines are accurate. Alas, the book has no page numbers, but the thumbnail images accompanying further information on each critter in the backmatter correspond to the order in which the animals appear.

Another impressive outing by a popular pair. (Informational picture book. 4-10)

Kirkus Reviews