Daniel Marlos

It's appropriate, I think, that my response to a book about bugs is rather, uh, nitpicky. This book quite clearly began life as a website, and it shows. There were numerous times I wanted to click on text to follow the topic but instead was swept along by the choppy, non-linear format of the book from click beetles to butterflies. The editing/usage errors were annoying to me but fairly benign, 'hoard' for 'horde' throughout, 'sheik' for 'chic' and other homophones. The illustrations appear to be copyright free antiques, and they are not labeled at all.

The information was mostly good (though the folklore about local honey ameliorating seasonal pollen allergies has been pretty thoroughly debunked by double-blind studies in the last few years) and fairly entertaining. The assertion that bedbugs come from seedy hotels, communal dormitories and the like is also suspect. It would be a fun book for someone just beginning to learn about insects. Had this been around when my son was a tot, it would have been bedtime reading for sure. There just wasn't enough here that was new to me and the writing was pretty pedestrian. I'd have given it 3 stars if it had fewer errors and better illustrations. The website WhatsThatBug is a much richer source of information.… (meer)