At last, a readable book about insects! Beekeeper Hubbell ( A Country Year ) discourses on familiar, if not widely loved, creatures. Midges, silverfish, katydid s and water striders, among others, come into her purview and occasion talks with scientists (she notes that she has never had a short conversation with an entomologist). Hubbell reports on her participation in an annual butterfly count in Wyoming and tells of collecting camel crickets in the Ozarks. Examining the commerce in pest-eating ladybugs, ordered from California by gardeners across the U.S., she explains that these insects will usually fly away when transported to a different locale. A chapter on bravo bees (aka ``killer bees'') suggests they have been unjustly maligned and that many actually invigorate strains of the American bees. Illustrations. Author tour. (Apr.)

Bugs are a creepy subject to most readers, but former librarian, beekeeper, and amateur entomologist Hubbell, author of A Country Year ( LJ 4/1/86), A Book of Bees , ( LJ 3/1/89), and On This Hilltop ( LJ 8/1/91) knows how to make them endearing as well as interesting. Whether she is describing first-hand observations of the camel crickets she raises in her terrarium, reporting on her travels to mountain meadows to do field work in the company of leading experts on butterflies, or trekking through Sierra Nevada canyons with furtive professional ``buggers'' who gather ladybugs from secret breeding spots, Hubbell reveals a sense of humor and spirit of adventure that makes entomology come alive for the general reader. In prose that is reminiscent of Diane Ackerman's The Moon by Whale Light ( LJ 10/15/91), Hubbell debunks myths and makes us appreciate how much is yet to be learned about creatures that outnumber humankind 300 pounds to one. Recommended for popular natural history collections.-- Laurie Tynan, Montgomery Cty.-Norristown P.L., Pa.

YA-Hubbell is sure to earn new fans with this peek into the mysterious world of 13 common bugs, from ladybugs to dragonflies. The author writes like Streisand sings: with blazing clarity and purity that knocks you out. The book contains more than enough technical information to be useful to biology students, while at the same time will hold the interest of the merely curious. Much of the media hysteria over killer bees and gypsy moths will be discounted after reading the sensible chapters on these two beasties. After reading Broadsides, readers will never squash a bug again-not, at least, without due consideration first.-Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William Public Library System, VA

More delightful nature writing from the author of A Book of Bees (1988) and A Country Year (1986). This time, Hubbell pulls off a tour de force, managing to turn those horrid creatures—bugs—into beings not only fascinating but even lovable. Rather than survey the entire range of the little beasts, she focuses on ten favorites, and on the entomologists who study them—who sometimes seem as peculiar as their subjects. First up: butterflies. A wise choice, everyone loves them. Hubbell revels in the Xerces Society's annual Fourth of July butterfly count and befriends a lepidopterist who uses a net named Martha. On to moths and flies, silverfish and katydids. Odd facts gather like ants around a sugar cube: 25% of all animal species are beetles; dragonflies zoom at 60 mph; there may be 50 million midges in a single swarm. Odd scientists pop up too, like the daddy longlegs specialist who can identify individual species of this abused arachnid (young boys like to pluck off its legs) simply by smell. But best here is the hands-on adventure, as when Hubbell goes ladybug-harvesting with the pros and rounds up millions of the critters in one day, or travels to Medford, Massachusetts, to track down the house from which the first gypsy moth escaped to devastate America's trees. She confesses to spending "unconscionable amounts of time" watching water striders walk on water, and allows that she is perhaps the only person who keeps camel crickets as pets. Just a few bugs come off as villains—above all, the black fly, which causes river blindness in Africa, although Hubbell reports that this pest may soon be eradicated: a legal, and much applauded, deliberate extinctionof a species. Hubbell at her best, abuzz with brightness. (Fifty-six terrific, prickly b&w line drawings of creepy-crawlies)