Bugs Galore

by Peter Stein, Bob Staake (Illustrator)

"Squirmy and educational." —  Kirkus Reviews

Dig in as a flurry of bugs of every shape, size, and color crawl across the page in a veritable infestation of whimsy and humor.  Cars Galore  creators Peter Stein and Bob Staake return with an in-the-dirt, high-in-the-sky critter tale buzzing with nonstop rhymes and swarming with comical retro illustrations.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Storytime, Nature, Animals, Science, Poetry

32 pages, Board Book

First published March 13, 2012

About the author

Peter Stein has been a highly successful writer, editor, designer, and art director for more than twenty years. He is the author of seven gift books, including Age Is Nothing, Attitude Is Everything and Fine Friends: A Little Book About You and Me. He lives in Petaluma, California.

Reviews

[Vera Godley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gather the kids around you and prepare for a giggling, tickling, squinting, rollicking read through this delightful bouncy rhyme feast coupled with a plethora of adorable buggy wuggies of all shapes, color, stripes, plaids, and spots. Big and little. Long and stout. Flying, crawling. These critters will enthrall the kiddies and capture their imagination as their own little fingers just itch to draw some of the bugs for themselves. So be prepared for them to want to draw, color, and scare you with their own creations.

The imagination of illustrator Bob Staake holds no bounds. He has so many bugs and critters on each page that the kiddies will be searching and finding for hours or days delighted with each unique find. There are the specific bugs representing author Peter Stein's delightful rollicking rhyme, and there are the accompanying varieties creeping and flying all around.

A sample of this delightful book....
Big bugs, small bugs,
creep bugs, crawl bugs,
Sky bugs, land bugs,
Slime-your-hand bugs!

(did you catch that giggle?)

Love bugs, Shove bugs,
Head bugs, Bedbugs,
Cute bugs, Fruit bugs,
Live bugs, Dead bugs.

I recommend that you find yourself and your kiddies a copy of this book and get to enjoying it. Available at your favorite bookseller.

GIVEAWAY: Candlewick Press will mail 1 of Chat With Vera's readers their very own copy of BUGS GALORE. Easy entries: Begins June 29 and ENDS July 15 at 12:00 Noon EDT.

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DISCLOSURE: I was provided a complimentary copy of Bugs Galore by Candlewick Press for the purpose of rending my honest opinion in a review. The giveaway copy is provided directly to the winner directly from Candlewick Press.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Bob Staake's illustrations in Cars Galore. Despite the charming illustrations in this latest title, the book just doesn't work as well for me.

I admit reviewed this with a lot of bias -- my first graders work on an insect unit each spring and I love including a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts. The book features all kinds of creepy crawlies, not just bugs. There is just too many buggy misinformation for me to want to use this book as part of an insect unit with my budding little scientists.

Kids, however, will love the pictures and the rhymes are a lot of fun. I loved the page with lightning bugs. And kids will get a kick out of "stay away from/ craw-on-POO bugs!"

Recommended for preschool and kindergarten.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a totally silly bug book. Don't look here for information about bugs--but imagination? Oh yes. The pictures are overflowing with unusual, funny, bizarre bugs to discover. The rhyming totally works. My kids love to spend a lot of time on each page and ask what each bug is doing or thinking. If it continues to entertain them like this, we will probably have to pick this one up at the bookstore.

[Rachael Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, short rhymes on every page. There are so many things going on in the illustrations that can be talked about. This could be a little long for the youngest groups.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

As they did so successfully in Cars Galore, the same creative team tackles the wonderful world of bugs. The pages are filled with bugs of all colors and sizes and describe the bugs in a delightful fashion; for instance, there are "slime-your-hand bugs" (unpaginated), "fuzzy, stinging, time-to-flee bug" (unpaginated), and "roly-ply, snuggly ball bug" (unpaginated). Bugs threaten to cover the pages in some of the digital illustrations while in others there are only a few larger-than-life bugs moving across the pages. Young readers will enjoy the pace, the language, and the sometimes gross descriptions of bugs in this rhyming text introduction to bugs. While not scientifically accurate, since some of the bugs in the book wouldn't actually be classified as bugs, this title is still lots of fun to read aloud.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entertaining book about bugs. The rhyming, rhythmic narrative is fun to read aloud and the illustrations are colorful and very busy.

There's not a lot of text on each page and the narrative can easily be broken up, so this would be a good book to read aloud at storytime with an individual or a group, pausing on each page to talk about the concepts or to point out fun details.

Overall, I liked this book and I think it's a good introduction to insects and other creepy crawly critters for young children.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading about 1000 children's book i rewrite this one as a 5. Really good.

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fun read-a-loud with great rhymes and illustrations that contain surprises even after the 100th time you've read it.

[K.D. Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the concept of this book with fun and short rhymes, but the message really is quite awful. The book describes bugs as gross, ugly, mean, etc, except for the “popular” ones like butterflies and fireflies. I understand that insects aren’t the favorite of everyone, but books like this create false fear and disrespect of insects, and are an insult to people who do enjoy them. If we reversed this same message to say puppies are gross, ugly, mean, and so on, nobody would read it to their child. I feel this should apply to insects as well. There are so many positive and interesting things about insects that could send a better message and highlight appreciation for insects.

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this squirmy-wormy book all about bugs! It's true, though, most of my LOVE is directed at illustrator Bob Staake. Creepy-crawly kisses for this artist.

[Emma York]

Bug Galore is a cartoon formal book that uses a lot of descriptive vocabulary words that young children could learn from reading multiple times. A standard for early elementary school students is learning descriptive words so growing up reading books using: shiny, sticky, smelly, slick, etc. These would be good to hear in the context of a story so they are applied correctly.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are so many weird and freaky bugs out there. I wish there weren't so many made up bugs in this book.
If you're looking for similar, cool bug book I'd recommend Some Bugs

[Mrs Heet -Librarian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book however the rhyming was sort of all over the place. Some pages went smoothly and others were very clunky. It really didn't talk much about bugs other than just random descriptive words. And some were totally unnecessary like "stay away from crawl-on-poo bugs" or "Live Bugs. Dead Bugs." or showing a child accidentally step on a bug.

[Nora Manriquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book even though they some of the bugs in the book look like they aren't real but i like how they name a few of the bugs. This book would be great for maybe 4 year old and young children who really like bugs.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bug rhymes galore. Staake's illustrations are busy, colorful, fun, and show diverse kids. The bugs are an interesting mix of accurate and anthropomorphized. There's a little bit of "gross, scary, bugs" sentiment also thrown in, about which I'm not sure how I feel.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A ‘fun’ and silly book, especially to read out loud… but too much misinformation and things like ‘scary spider’ for me to want to read it often to my kid. I’m glad we got it from the library and read it once though.

[Rachel B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tongue-twisting verses made my toddler giggle, especially the reference to "'don't play with poo' bugs."

[Anna - Kids · Rating 5 out of 5]

The rhyming in this one is really fun! And the art is great too.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun illustrations and great lyrical text. A joy to read.

[BiblioBeruthiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good rhythm

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the parts about bugs.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightfully weird bugs dance across the pages, reminding one of both the earliest days of cartoons and more modern styles.

[Lynn Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of bugs in many different sizes, shapes, colours and activities. Brightly illustrated story in rhyme.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun rhymes and great, detailed illustrations.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is fun and there's a LOT going on. It's a little too long. Kids have to have a pretty good attention span for this one.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Relentless and airless, loud and droning. And so weirdly disconnected to any bugness. This is a cartoon show in an empty room. As wallpaper it could work. As a reading experience: ay.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it would be more informational but it's still cute and funny

[Estee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoa! So many different things to look at in this book! And we loved the rhyming big verses. Fun to read and look at!

[Faloni © · Rating 5 out of 5]

👃👅👀 That was hilarioussssssssss 🤣👉🪰👏

[Emma Breidenbach · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this science information book called Bug Galore. It is a cartoon formal book that uses a lot of descriptive vocabulary words that young children could learn from reading multiple times.