A First Book of Bugs

About this book

Did you know that the first animal to ever walk on land was an insect? So was the first animal to fly through the sky. Amazing! 

Today, for every human on earth, there are a mind-boggling 1.4 billion insects. In this beautifully illustrated book by Simon Mole and Adam Ming, readers will learn about bugs and minibeasts as diverse as African driver ants, goliath tarantulas, potato bugs, dragonflies, and lots more.  

The focus of this book is to demystify insects and encourage young readers to love them, rather than fear them or find them yucky. 

Two of the four main sections of the book highlight the beauty and cooperative nature of insects, and there’s lots of celebrating of all the brilliant jobs bugs do for us: acting as natural pest control, helping plants to grow, and much more. 

Rather than straight facts, each bug profile is written as a poem on a colourfully illustrated double page spread, meaning that young readers are given some useful information as well as creative language and, often, a rhyme. 

Simon Mole also uses poetic devices such as repetition, call and response, alliteration and interactive exclamations such as "eeeek!" and "weeeee", which will be fun for little ones to say along with the adult reading.