By Steve Jenkins
A stunning cut-paper gallery of beetles that shows just how wildly many kinds there are.
One out of every four animals on Earth is a beetle, and this book sets out to show why that is so amazing. Steve Jenkins builds each beetle out of cut and torn paper, many of them printed life-size, and walks through the sheer range of them: beetles that glow, beetles that spray hot chemicals to defend themselves, beetles that roll balls of dung, beetles armored like tiny knights. It is nonfiction, but it reads like a parade.
For a child ready to move from 'bugs are fun' to real facts, this is the perfect step, because the art is so beautiful they will stare at it long enough to soak up the science. Each beetle comes with one or two true, surprising facts, short enough to read aloud or for an older child to read alone. And it makes a quiet, big point a bug-obsessed child loves: there is almost no end to how many kinds there are.