Insects Books

My daughter has loved this book since she was 4 months old. Everytime we read it together, she tries to "pick off" the ladybugs from the page. the story is sweet and introduces other animals and has beautiful illustrations. If I need to get her attention, all I need to do is pick up the book and begin reading it. She stops what she's doing and crawls over ASAP. I highly recommend this. We also have 8 Silly Monkeys which is cute as well.

My 10 month old grandson loves this book. While I read to him, he touches the raised lady bugs and pokes his fingers through the holes on the other page. The little story / counting poem is adorable and the pictures are bright and colorful. All ages will love this book.
Grandma Mary

My 2-year-old LOVES this book! We used it first for a "preschool homeschooling" unit about ladybugs - this book along helped reinforce her reading and counting related skills, as well as animal identification, colors, etc. Oh, and let's not forget that she just flat-out enjoyed it, too! It's still a favorite even though the semiformal ladybug education ended a month or so ago. :)

This is a colorful, beautifully illustrated, great rhyming book that teaches counting. My babies LOVE this book. I LOVE this book. My sons are squealing with delight when I open it. If they are distracted and I start reading it, they forget about everything else. One of our favorites and definitely a winner!

I got the book when my daughter was 3 months old because I love its beautiful colors, the illustrations and the rhyming little poem. I read to her and showed her the pictures when she was laying in bed. As soon as she could sit up she was grabbing it and investigated the book closely. Then she started cooing to the little bugs/bees in the book. Now she is 10 months old the book can still hold her attention for a good 20-15 min. She will just flip through it like a big girl and saying a lot of things to it. Just a sweet sight. The best book in our collection by far.

This book is great! The illustrations are so impressive that even though they only black and white your children will love them. We spend time on each page just looking over the illustration each time we find something we didn't see before. And the story, WOW! This story is a must for every little girl. The story teaches young girls not to be niave and believe every little flattering word someone is telling you. In the end all that sweet talk may just be fooling you so someone else can get what they want, like the spider getting the fly. I will be reading this book more often to my daughters as they get older!

This style of the book reminds me of Edward Gorey. The illustrations are fabulous, if the matter is a bit dark. I have bought this for numerous friends after finding it at a unique bookstore in Portland, OR. Everyone who reads it ends up loving it.

wonderful story with a twist at the end. Wonderful illustrations. Don't in an old spooky way.

This book is amazing. We LOVE it! I love reading it to my daughter, because its a very easy read with a great cadence, and its fun to pour over the illustration to find something new every time. Tony DiTerlizzi is an awesome illustrator, and I am looking forward to seeing more stories illustrated by him.

This item was exactly as described in the item description. It was in the original packaging and is in excellent condition. I am very satisfied and I highly recommend this seller and product to everyone. This is an excellent book by an excellent author!

Good story with lots of clever bits to keep parents entertained too. But I enjoyed Cronin's Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type and Duck for President much more.

My kids love these books, and love to have them read to them often. I even enjoy hearing them read to me. I would recommend any of the "Diary of a" books.

I bought "Diary of a Spider" thinking that Doreen Cronin's books are always a big hit with my daughter. After all, she just loves, "Click, Clack, Moo!" and the others of that series. I thought getting this series could introduce her to the world of insects and "icky" things.

Instead, I found something unexpected happened. My daughter was 5 when I first started reading "The Diary of a spider" to her, and sure enough, she loved this book became interested in the life of spiders. But that was not all. My daughter also began to express an interest in keeping her own sort of diary, even though she cannot yet write. She asked me to buy her a little journal, and she glued pictures and stickers from school and her Kindergarten class in it. She added some photos of our family; had me write the names of the people under the pictures for her. I do not think she would have come by starting this sort of scrapbooking or diary-making without having read "Diary of a Spider" and seeing the value of this activity. "Diary of a Spider" really helped her to see that every body's point of view is unique and special.

I am really delighted in this result and highly recommend this book for its value not only in garnering interest in entomology, but also for developing positive self-worth and interest in Diary making.

My grandchildren (2 & 3) both liked the book. My grandson loves spiders and he was excited about it. The illustrations were great.

We all love the Diary of a Worm, Spider and Fly books. Great illustrations, educational and funny!

"The Giant Jam Sandwich" is great for any kid with a vivid imagination its laid out in such a way that it flows like honey or in the case of this book STRAWBERRY JAM! The basis of this book is the town of "Itching Down" has one serious dilemma, one day in flew 4 million wasps and of course they were wreaking havoc for everyone and everything so what do you do to try to get rid of these pesky wasps? why build a giant jam sandwich and trap them in it!
From what I see this book came out 30yrs ago its has a fun rhyming text, the illustrations are great I love the expressions of the townsfolk and it showcases a community really coming together to solve a big buzzing problem. A great food fun book a lot like "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" which I also highly recommend. This book is complete fun for the family a great story to bring along for picnics just don't forget to pack your own jam sandwiches!

My son who is graduating from high school requested this book as a graduation gift. It is one of his favorite memories from childhood and may have even influenced his decision to become a professional pilot. A charming story told in rhyme accompanied by whimsical illustrations. An asset for any child's library.

I grew up with this book and am rapt that amazon could find it for me.
I love the simplicity of the book, the story, pictures etc.
I am now able to read it to my children.

This was a favorite of mine as a child, so I was excited when my daughter was the right age to read it. She enjoys it immensely and loves to point out and name all the details in the colorful pictures.

I love how the paperback version offers a gerat book at an affordable rate for my boys. I remember watching it on "Reading Rainbow" as a child and was happy to share it with my own boys.

"One lonely spider sipped her tea while gazing at the sky
She watched the insects on the leaves and many flying by..."

So begins the tale of Miss Spider, a charming arachnid whose only wish is to have many an insect delight in her hospitality by attending her elegant tea party. Outwardly, Miss Spider is quite beautiful - a cheery goldenrod body accented by large black dots, hypnotizing peridot eyes fringed by heavy lashes, a striking red coif and coquettish smile all look very innocent, indeed. Despite her attractive appearance and friendly demeanor, not one insect in Miss Spider's neighborhood will accept her invitation for fear they will be caught in a literal web of deceit and become the main course amongst the gleaming china and sweet cakes.

As Miss Spider tries time and again to coax different insects (bumblebees, beetles, etc.), for a sit-down, she is continually met with resistance and/or rejection and retreats to her place settings, shedding a tear for the loss of company. It's not until a hapless moth soaked by the downpour of a thunderstorm stumbles upon her council that Miss Spider offers a tablecloth and tea to warm him. As the grateful moth flies off with a piece of chocolate cake, the good news spreads quickly of her generosity and good nature. Before she knows it, Miss Spider is flanked by dozens of insects and becomes the guest of honor at her own party and is graciously welcomed into the fold of many an insect family.

David Kirk has crafted a charming story that tells young children that people cannot be judged by their outward appearance, only by the content of their character and it does so magnificently with all the colorful and resplendent original paintings contained within. Your child will be enraptured by Kirk's bright and beautiful art work (it's one of the main reasons why I picked up this book for my daughter) and as an added bonus will get a nice refresher course on counting from 1-12 (two beetles, three fireflies, four bumblebees, etc.). The entire book is written in the form of a poem with spontaneous rhyme schemes - the language as well as the story flows beautifully as a result.

Bottom line: Undeniably enjoyable for the reader and the spectator, the artwork and word form of "Miss Spider's Tea Party" makes for a visual and auditory rapture.

This cleverly written concept (counting and poetry) book combined with the most beautiful illustrations makes this a must have for any home library. Before they can even read, children will enjoy have this story read to them while they look at the vivid pictures and try to count all the bugs to match the story. Opportunities to increase vocabulary are bountiful with the creative and broad use of vocabulary within the rhyming plot. The ending shows a great character building lesson to get to know someone before making a judgement. Just perfect!

Very cute story. I bought my niece the Fisher-Price tea party set and bought this book to go with it. The story is short but the pictures are adorable and very colorful. I would recommend this book. My niece is 1 1/2, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over 3.

We've been reading this to our little guy since he was three months old, if even that, and he was glued to it from the start, easily his favorite book, still, at nearly 13 months. Great color, great rhythm, and lots of fun bugs! :)

The "Miss Spider" books are pretty easy reads. Nice stories, wonderfully bright, and imaginatively styled illustrations!

My 3 year old is a little concerned with spiders in general and I think by giving a sweet personality to a spider, it helps to take the edge off of the spiders we may find in the house and in nature.

This book was nothing like I expected. I found it very unorganized. Tried to find a catarpillar I found in my yard, and it took forever, there was no simple way to find it without searching thru hundreds of pages. Didn't work for me.

I never knew there were so many different kinds of caterpillars. The book has wonder color pictures and great information on each species. One of my favorite moths is the hummingbird moth. I now know that its lava is a horn caterpillar, the kind I would automatically kill when found. Not any more!!
This book will be on my porch for quick reference every time I go into the garden.It is really great.

Caterpillars of Eastern North America is easily the best book on the subject in general publication today. It is an amazing book with incredible insights into the habits and lifecycle of this neglected stage in Lepidoptera metamorphosis. You will not be disappointed if you buy this fascinating guide.

A great book on ID of caterpillers!! I was able to find the IO Moth caterpiller with this book in hand. Very in depth info pack in this book. I would highly recommend this book, especially if one finds caterpillers they've never seen before, which was my case. Check out my photos!

With an ever increasing interest in butterflies I recently purchased an excellent book that had outstanding photos of butterflies.....but not of the caterpillars that produced the butterflies. This was a huge disappointment because very often you find the caterpillar but have no idea what it will grow up to be. Caterpillars of Eastern North America completes "the story". In addition to excellent close up photos of each species, the book supplies comprehensive information about the identification, foodplants, and occurrences in an easy to read format. Closing the circle, they provide a photo of the adult butterfly or moth. This is a must have for anyone interested in the life cycle of of these beautiful creatures.

My family is very fond of all of Julia Donaldson's books, but The Snail and the Whale is our very favorite. Axel Sheffler's illustrations are whimsical (My son has noticed that most of the insects he draws have noses)and beautiful. I am especially fond of its rhyming, making it a delight to read. Most of all, I love the messages it contains. One of which is that the world is vast and wonderful and we should get out and experience it. Also, it stresses the importance of helping one another, and being kind to our environment. A big nod goes out to The Snail and the Whale and its creators for giving us a book which is not only wonderful to look at and read, but has a valuable message. Thanks!

This is one of those books that I could read every night and not get sick of. In fact, over the past three years I HAVE read it every night for weeks at a time and still love the flow of the text.

My favorite lines include, "And she gazed at the sky, the sea, the land, The waves and the caves and the golden sand. She gazed and gazed, amazed by it all, And she said to the whale, 'I feel so small.'" The word "small" is in a smaller font than the rest of the text and is so appropriate for the two page spread that includes the tiny snail (barely visible) amidst a scene of snowy mountains, forests, bears, bald eagles, the sea.

Perfect for teaching the concept that it doesn't matter how big or small you are, you ARE important and CAN be successful. As the snail sets off on his mission (I won't spoil it), the text reads "'I must not fail,' said the tiny snail." GREAT lesson!

Can you tell that we love this book?!?!?

I read 3 books every night to my almost-4 year old daughter (I love to read and share this love with her) and this is one of our very favorites. It is beautifully written, marvelously illustrated and just so very sweet. My husband loves to read it too. A book for children that makes even parents dream about travelling adventures on the back of the whale! Most highly recommended.

My 27 month old son and I really enjoy Julia Donaldson's books and this book is among our favorites. It was the first of her books that we read and we liked it so much that we thought to purchase her other books without looking at other reviews and we have not been disappointed. She is a great children's book author and knows how to keep her stories interesting and just the right length for their attention span(I started this book with my son when he was under two and instead of reading the printed text which would be too long for a two year old, I described each page since the illustrations tell the story themselves-I was able to keep his interest by adding a little bit of detail each time we read it.) The illustrations are wonderful and I feel like my son got exposed to the great vastness of this world by simply going on an adventure with the snail and the whale:-)

The story of a snail that wants to see the world and the whale that gives her a ride. Very nice story and the rhymes and the cadence make it fun to read out loud.

This is the first "insect" book I've seen that is told as a story. As such, it can be used as a reference book; but is delightful when read cover-to-cover. It is a combination biography, natural science, and how-scientists-find-out book. The engaging writing, clear descriptions, fascinating photos, and exacting descriptions of scientific research are rarely found in one volume.

It has been said that life is chemistry, and some says that chemistry is life. If you seek what molecules are behind the different defense systems in insects, this is the book. Excellent.

Let me put in my two cents' worth, as well. This is a fabulous book even for those who aren't into bugs. Eisner is a warm and wonderful writer who's enthusiasm for insects is infectious. It inspired me to a) raise some cockroaches to study their behavior (and thereby risk divorce), and b) search for spiders by flashlight (and thereby risk neighborly opprobrium).
Buy the book, kick up, relax, and enter the surprisingly fascinating world of insects and chemistry.

This is an excellent book to share the insect world as they protect themselves from their environments.

Thomas Eisner is J. G. Schurman Professor of Chemical Ecology at Cornell University and his life long fascination of the insect world has blessed us with an extraordinary, in-depth knowledge of bugs and their awesome capabilities, esp., in chemical defenses which have led to the discovery of many helpful medicines, etc.

Eisner's many beautiful color photos and micro-photography turn this book into a coffee-table txt book on insect ecology and this is worth the price of admission on just that aspect alone.

The famous sociobiologist/entomologist, friend and research collaborator of Eisner, E. O. Wilson, "Diversity of Life", et al., wrote the Foreword to this book and gives a good summation on the focus of this book: "The many behaviors he [Eisner] has discovered and explained, and their implementation by life around us, amazing in a variety and precision, are the worthy focus of this book." Well put.

After the Foreword is a great quote about insects in general: "What makes things baffling is their degree of complexity, not their sheer size... a star is simpler than an insect." From: [Martin Rees, "Exploring Our Universe and Others," Scientific American, December 1999]

In the Prologue, Eisner has given a great appraisal of the insect world in: "They have succeeded in one major respect where humans have failed. They are practitioners of sustainable development. Although they are the primary consumers of plants, they do not merely exploit plants. They also pollinate them, thereby providing a secure future, both for themselves and for their plant partners." Indeed, symbiosis, harmony...

...And, Eisner on his hopes for this fine book: "If this book contributes in any way toward bolstering the preservationist spirit, as I hope it might, it will have fulfilled it's purpose."

It has certainly "edified" my preservationist spirit and will no doubt do the same for others!

I have to admit I did not expect to find this book as interesting as it turned out to be. I was only interested in identifying some species within my yard and discovered quite a bit about ants. This book won't make you an expert, but it has made me see ants from a whole new perspective, so much so that I have come to like them instead of disliking them. I can also see why it is possible to kill a colony so easily. Never knew that once the queen is gone, there is no colony. I think if ants had atom bombs they would have destroyed the earth by now - killing each other. I had no idea they were so aggressive towards one another. Anyway, great book to read.

Apart from being a great book for all kind of reader, it was, for me (eight years ago!), a start point and it was probably the cause I focus my career nowadays in these small insects. It's quite nice for a child (then better with adult, not to read alone) or young people interested in natural sciences.

I loved this book. After reading it I spent the next night telling my wife all I'd managed to remember.

Journey to the Ants is a shorter version of the authors' monumental The Ants (1990), a 732-page tome aimed at professional biologists with a lot of technical language and a clear encyclopedic intent. This book, as Holldobler and Wilson explain in the Preface, is of "a more manageable length, with less technical language and with an admitted and unavoidable bias toward those topics and species on which we have personally worked."

It is a terrific book, lavishly illustrated with many color plates, line drawings, black and white drawings, photos, etc. Especially wonderful are the color prints of paintings by John D. Dawson showing ants in various activities. His style reminds me a bit of M.C. Esher. Also notable are the many photos taken by Holldobler and Wilson during their many travels and studies. They are both renowned experts on ants around the world.

The text is both informative and entertaining. Wilson in particular is a world class science writer as well as a great scientist, and his clarity of expression and enthusiasm show through. The chapters examine and illustrate how ants live in their colonies, how they hunt prey, tend aphid "cattle," cultivate fungi, raid other ant colonies; how they fight and how they reproduce. Other chapters focus on particular species, like army ants or leaf cutter ants, or "strange" ants. Still other chapters show how ants communicate especially through pheromones and touch. There is some theory on ant origins (about 100-120 million years ago) and their evolution and present distribution. I was particularly interested in and appalled by both the way some ants are parasites and how they themselves are exploited by parasites. Our esteemed authors show how ants, for all their power and evolutionary success, can be the most naive victims of beetles, flies, butterfly larva, etc. simply because they can be fooled by smells that mimic those of the colony and/or because they can be given irresistible concoctions of food or what might be called "drugs" that make them passive and acceptive of insects that will eat their eggs and larva. They are also tricked into feeding strangers on the trail and alien larva in the colony nest!

I purposely first read a couple of other books on ants (The World of Ants: A Science-Fiction Universe (1970) by Remy Chauvin, and Ants (1977) by M.V. Brian), written by myrmecologists of an earlier generation so as to be able to better appreciate this famous work. But you need not do that. Journey to the Ants is eminently accessible to just about any literate person.

While reading I had some thoughts (as Wilson famously has had) on the differences and similarities between ant societies and human ones. Ants are not governed as we are (and as was once thought) in any way by a central authority. (They are influenced by the queen's pheromones and her behavior.) Instead ants are examples of "swarm intelligence," that is purposeful and coordinated behavior that arises from each individual doing what comes naturally to that individual. This sort of intelligence was just beginning to be appreciated when Holldobler and Wilson wrote this book. The phrase "swarm intelligence" does not appear anywhere in the book, and yet it is clear that our present understanding of how this intelligence works was gleaned in part from the work of biologists and ethologists like Holldobler and Wilson.

Ants are famous for doing human-like things that no other animals or few can do, such as gardening, tending herds, making war, and constructing elaborate living spaces. It is usually said that ants do it from pure instinct whereas we use our intelligence and the experience. Humans and ants cannot be defined independently of their respective cultures. What I wonder is, is it an artificiality to say that their intelligence, spread out as it is among the individuals and their genetic endowments, is fundamentally different from our own? Clearly ants are limited in what they can construct, what they can understand, and what tools they can make and use. I read somewhere that ants never developed fire because no ant could get close enough to a sustainable fire to tend it.

A striking conclusion is that perhaps the real difference between us comes from our ability to grow a million times bigger in size which allows us not only to tend fires, but to develop brains large enough to handle abstract thought such as in language, which further allows us to develop and share ideas, concepts, practices, and all the other aspects of our culture in a way that is impossible for ants, whose brain size is limited by their anatomy.

So, although ants were here long before we arrived, and although they probably will be here long after we are gone, it is impossible to say which life form is the more successful. We do have at present the capability, which ants do not, of enhancing our ability to survive through genetic engineering and the development of biologically friendly machines, and even the ability to migrate away from this earth so that our genes and ourselves are not in one basket, so to speak. Should a planet-sterilizing event hit the earth, we could be on Mars and still survive.

But then there is this insidious thought: perhaps the ants, like our resident microbes, will find a way to come with us!

Don't miss this book. You are in for a treat.

There is few to say that has not been said. It is very well written and the information is mind-boggling.

THIS WILL SHOW YOU THE REAL DEAL OF THE DOG EAT DOG UNIVERSE OF BUGS, IN YOUR FRONT AND BACKYARD...............

This is a great book it has wonderful pictures so that you may identify the bugs that you are looking for. I purchased one for myself and one for my daughter and we both love them.

I received this as a gift after I mentioned that I loved the Orkin insect zoo at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. It was not a book I would have bought for myself, but it has become indispensable bedtime reading! The pictures are vibrant and accompanied by hard-to-forget descriptions and explanations. I especially love the pictures taken by Whitney Cranshaw himself. This book is very accessible to those who are interested in the secret tiny life that exists off of their back porch, people who don't know where to start and therefore keep pushing it off. Even the way the bugs are organized in the book is perfect- Leaf Chewers, Sap Suckers, Gall Makers, Twig Damagers, Branch Borers, Bulb Feeders... doesn't this sound like the most beautiful poem in the world??

This bok is very inclusive in it's content and very easy to look up insect for information or identification. It is used by Master Gardeners in our part of the country wth great appreciation for a book of such quality buyt yet affordble.

one shouldn't take this book lightly, it is a large and heavy tome with lots of great information and photos. i think that the author, whitney cranshaw, did a great job in how he presents the information. one bit that i would have liked to have is distribution map. information is given about distribution, but i like to have maps too.

i would have enjoyed even more information on each insect he covers, but that would make the book at least twice it's size. that probably wouldn't work at it is already 656 pages long.

it would also be neat if this author could do books on different regions of our country in this format.