Are You A Ladybug? (Avenues) (Backyard Books)

This is a cute, easy to understand and very short guide to information about ladybugs for young children. Each two page spread is wonderfully illustrated (watercolor and pencil, a mellow, natural look) with a few short sentences about the lifecycle of the ladybug from the "mom" laying eggs, through the several metamorphosis that the young larvae go through...acknowledging that young ladybugs look nothing like adults, which is excellent because this entire process can be difficult to explain to young children without them seeing it...and in Are You a Ladybug, it's all drawn out nicely and it's very easy to understand! Are you a Ladybug presents the physical characteristics and behavior of ladybugs as ell as their diet, habitat and also discusses how animals and birds don't eat them because they taste bad...no reason is given and it's never discussed if they have any natural predators, we were left to find out this information on our own, so that was slightly disappointing. What's so appealing about Are You a Ladybug is that because of the way it's written, young readers (or listeners, if you use these as read-alouds) are put front and center, they are put in the position of imagining what is going on from hatching and eating their egg, to molting, eating lots and lots of aphids, and then growing their hard shell. This book really engages young minds in a way that is both accurate (scientifically presented) and fun (pretend play/imaginative), with just the right amount of humor to keep it from getting bogged down in facts. I give it four stars, it would have gotten five, but there is no glossary and the author does not define what an aphid is...though this did provide us with an opportunity to go to their picture dictionary and allow them to look it up and discuss it as an additional activity! Great for ages 4-8, with 4-6 probably being the ideal age range, what a fun way to "gear up" for spring, when animals and insects of all kinds will be coming out in force. With this book, we've given our kids a head start on what to look for this spring and they are looking forward to it.

I was thrilled when I found this book! It is so difficult to teach children that metamorphosis doesn't just mean when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly - that it happens to all insects. Observing the metamorphosis of more than one animal is the key. This book is simply splendid alongside the Ladybug Land product from Highlights.com where you purchase a ladybug habitat and larvae and observe the process for yourself. I agree with all the enthusiastic reviews below and rate this book * highly recommended * in terms of accessible fun reading & valuable scientific content.

This book has it all--engaging, not too complicated text, GREAT illustrations and a lots of good science content. I have a huge collection of pre-school, early elem. books on insects, but none of them cover the type of metamorphosis that the lady beetle goes through, with the larvae looking totally different than the adult, and the pupae looking . . . well not like a butterfly cocoon, that's for sure, just a spotted lump! I was conducting a class for middle school teachers and we found a lady beetle pupa on a leaf and I thought in might be a gall. Luckily my book order for the early elementary class came in and I noticed the picture in the "Are You a Ladybug" book that explained what we had found. That's a pretty good endorsement for a pre-school book, that it can teach a middle school science class new information! Also, this book is very usefull to teach about how insect predators help control pest populations, since the beetles in the book eat aphids and more aphids. Again, this type of information is not often found in pre-school level books. I bought the grasshopper book too, and I like these books so much I am ordering the whole series!

An excellent book that introduces children to the idea of metamorphosis while keeping their attention. Many people do not recognize the immature stage of the ladybug but this book treats it with humor -- when the eggs hatch, "you might think you have all made a big mistake" because of course immatures look nothing like adult ladybird beetles.A great book for primary school science.