Presents general information about different insects and includes more than thirty activities to help study insects, such as building nets to capture butterflies and building moth traps.
David Andrew Burnie is an accomplished zoologist who was a nature reserve ranger before becoming a natural history author and editor. A prolific writer of many books, including several on dinosaurs, he has seen many of his titles win educational awards and science prizes. His titles for Kingfisher include Kingfisher Knowledge: Endangered Planet and The Kingfisher Illustrated Dinosaur Encyclopedia, which was nominated for the Aventis Prize for Science Books in 2002.
I found this book to be the perfect size for children, it contains enough information to ensure it is interesting and enlightening, without getting bogged down in too much detail. It also describes a wide variety of insect life to ensure that it captures the imagination of all children with an interest in insects.
It is not only a very well illustrated book with lots of information about the bugs and how they go about their lives, it also provides the reader with experiments and ideas of how to catch and observe these creatures. These are straightforward enough to perform at home, or in the classroom without too many resources being required. The latter is how I would best make use of the book. Whilst teaching a topic on wildlife or habitats; some of these experiments would be ideal to give the children an understanding of these intimate areas and how life flourishes even on such a small scale. I think that this book would be suitable for children of all ages, with the experiments requiring less adult supervision as you move up through the age groups.
The weakness of the book are almost its strengths, if there is a lack of interest in insects and bugs then it will be a struggle to get through, however, even a only a slight interest gives it the chance to grab the reader. Overall, I see this book as an ideal resource for informing children of all ages about insects and their livelihoods.