Busy Builders

Enticing as an introduction to insects and spiders.

As always, Munro expertly employs perspective, on one page placing readers zoomed in at eye-level up next to an ant or wasp, close enough to see the hairs on their legs and the shapes of their antennae, and then on the next page backing out to just the right distance to feature the geometric details of their nests and hives. Copyright 2012 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Detailed explanations on the construction techniques and purposes of the structures are interwoven with facts about each species' life cycles. Bib., glos.

Readers who are curious about insect habitats and behavior will find answers in this guide to their behind-the-scenes activities. Munro introduces nine insects by blowing each one up to fill an entire spread of its own ("This is a Red Harvester Ant... Where does it live?"), giving readers a close view. Busy intervening spreads depict the insect's home. Harvester ants, for example, create subterranean chambers, which are divided into areas for food storage, nurseries, and other purposes, while a pine processionary caterpillar lives in a nest on a pine branch that "looks like cotton candy." While the heavy blocks of text may trip up younger readers, it's a useful exploration of a handful of insect species. Ages 5-11. (Apr.)

Copyright 2012 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Gr 3-6--Complex structures built by eight insects and one arachnid are featured in brief, extravagantly illustrated, enormously enlarged entries. Each creature is introduced on an oversize spread: "This is an Organ-Pipe Mud Dauber. Where does it live?" No clues are provided, but the following spread with a cutaway view of the nest or other construction and a dense paragraph of explanation offers a cursory answer to the question. "The Organ-Pipe Mud Dauber (Trypoxylon politum) is a wasp named for the nest of long, narrow, multicolored tubes made of dried mud and often attached to a wall." Some further description of the insect's behavior or its building method is given, but there's no indication of its actual size, its changing form as it lives and matures in the nest, or its geographical location. The Australian Weaver Ant and the African Termite have names offering clues, but the honeybees and some others do live in more nearby places. Munro uses the four-page guessing-game scheme she used in Hatch (Marshall Cavendish, 2011), which introduces different eggs and the birds hatching from them, but the exaggerated views and sketchy, often-difficult explanations make this title more of an album of curiosities. Large and heavy in the hand, the book has bold views that might attract browsers.--Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.