Bugs Galore

by Peter Stein, Bob Staake (Illustrator)

Overview

"Squirmy and educational." — Kirkus Reviews

Dig in as a flurry of bugs of every shape, size, and color crawl across the page in a veritable infestation of whimsy and humor. Cars Galore creators Peter Stein and Bob Staake return with an in-the-dirt, high-in-the-sky critter tale buzzing with nonstop rhymes and swarming with comical retro illustrations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763662202
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	12/10/2013
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,092,716
Product dimensions:	6.36(w) x 6.82(h) x 0.72(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 3 Years

About the Author

Peter Stein has been a highly successfully writer, editor, designer, and art director for more than twenty years. He is the author of seven gift books, including Age Is Nothing: Attitude Is Everything and Fine Friends: A Little Book About You and Me. He lives in Petaluma, California.

Bob Staake has written and/or illustrated more than fifty books, including The Red Lemon, a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year. His work has graced the cover of The New Yorker more than a dozen times, and his November 17, 2008, Barack Obama victory cover was named the Best Magazine Cover of the Year by Time magazine. He lives on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

An energetic ode to insects in a style that's Dr. Seuss meets Hieronymus Bosch... The madcap cartoons create an atmosphere that feels almost interplanetary, playing up the alien nature (and the diversity) of the insect world.
—Publishers Weekly

With bouncing rhyme and illustrations that demand multiple viewings, Bugs Galore is a rollicking celebration of all things creepy-crawly. This highly successful collaboration shows how well text and artwork can add up to something more... The main action is always clear and bold, but each spread features dozens of bugs with individual details, expressions, and actions. Kids will love identifying the little creatures specified in the text and discovering other stories through the pictures.
—School Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

An energetic ode to insects in a style that's Dr. Seuss meets Hieronymus Bosch... The madcap cartoons create an atmosphere that feels almost interplanetary, playing up the alien nature (and the diversity) of the insect world.
—Publishers Weekly

With bouncing rhyme and illustrations that demand multiple viewings, Bugs Galore is a rollicking celebration of all things creepy-crawly. This highly successful collaboration shows how well text and artwork can add up to something more... The main action is always clear and bold, but each spread features dozens of bugs with individual details, expressions, and actions. Kids will love identifying the little creatures specified in the text and discovering other stories through the pictures.
—School Library Journal

A veritable swarm of adjectives, opposites and, ew, bugs... Squirmy and educational.
—Kirkus Reviews

Bright, digitally generated illustrations reminiscent of the atomic-style cartoons of the 1950s and 1960s accompany spare, absurdist rhymes that make you smile. This one should be read aloud often.
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Peter Stein and illustrator Bob Staake have made me love boy things. In CARS GALORE they imagined cars that snore, smell, rock out and do loop-de-loops and described them all in funny, silly, concise rhymes. They've done it again with BUGS GALORE, where the creepy crawlies of the world watch TV, swim in soup, do a conga line with food and light up the night sky.
—Huffington Post Parents blog

From the Publisher

Stein and Staake follow up Cars Galore (2011) with an equally energetic ode to insects, which Staake portrays interacting with children—sometimes to their delight, sometimes not—in a style that’s Dr. Seuss meets Hieronymus Bosch. Stein’s staccato verse keeps an upbeat tempo throughout: “Some bugs cruise/ around in groups./ Some bugs fly in/ loop-de-loops./ Some bugs land/ smack-dab in soups/ Some bugs crawl/ right under... oops” (the “oops” bug is shown flattened under a girl’s shoe). The madcap cartoons create an atmosphere that feels almost interplanetary, playing up the alien nature (and the diversity) of the insect world. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 2—With bouncing rhyme and illustrations that demand multiple viewings, Bugs Galore is a rollicking celebration of all things creepy-crawly. This highly successful collaboration shows how well text and artwork can add up to something more. In a particularly successful spread, the art and verse combine to capture the magic of viewing fireflies, "Lightning glow bugs./Nighttime show bugs./Shining bright bugs./What-a-sight bugs!" Staake's bright, geometric illustrations are equally suited for large groups or up-close viewing. The main action is always clear and bold, but each spread features dozens of bugs with individual details, expressions, and actions. Kids will love identifying the little creatures specified in the text and discovering other stories through the pictures. Though not informational (while spiders are a gray area, worms are definitely not "bugs"), this book will no doubt delight children.—Anna Haase Krueger, Antigo Public Library, WI

School Library Journal

A veritable swarm of adjectives, opposites and, ew, bugs. The author/illustrator duo behind Cars Galore (2011) turns its attention to creepy-crawly, multi-legged friends. With a jaunty lilt and playful exaggeration, the rhythmic text contains plenty of fun: "Spider creeping … / scary. Gross. / Lurking … leaping! / Don't get close!" Bees, lice, beetles and bedbugs all get their due; even that weird, unidentifiable bug ("Hairy, scary-- / what was THAT bug?") has a turn to shine. Staake's familiar, rotund characters are surrounded by bugs of all colors, shapes, patterns and sizes. The frenetic insect-and-arachnid infestation sometimes overwhelms the design, but it pairs well with the jumbling, tumbling bounce of the text. Besides seeking out individual critters described on each page, readers will have no shortage of other creepy-crawlies to find and examine. (The extras are a peak into Staake's imagination--checkered thoraxes, striped, pointed noses, and oh, so many legs.) Stein ends the menagerie on a contemplative note: "Bug, so secret / are you wise? / Gazing out through / all those eyes? / What exactly / do you see? / I see you … // Do you see me?" Wistful, yet not likely to prevent the next squish. Squirmy and educational. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews