Hello, Bugs!

by Smriti Prasadam-Halls, Emily Bolam (Illustrator)

A charming introduction to ten beautiful little bugs, featuring high contrast black-and-white illustrations. A glittering burst of colored foil brings a vivid splash of color to every page. With first words to join in with, this stunning book will captivate sparkly little babies everywhere!

Babies and toddlers will love to meet the adorable bugs in this engaging book! Little hands can turn the sturdy board pages to meet a host of cute characters, including a ladybug, a caterpillar, a bee, a grasshopper, a dragonfly, a snail, and more. Simple text introduces readers to a handful of first words, while the bold artwork features each bug in its natural environment. Rounded corners, high-contrast black-and-white illustrations, and a glittering burst of colored foil on every page make this an ideal choice for the youngest learners.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books, Animals, Kids, Juvenile, Storytime, Fiction

10 pages, Board Book

First published May 17, 2010

About the author

Smriti Prasadam-Halls is an award-winning, internationally best-selling children’s author whose books have been published in more than thirty languages. Her titles include the Publishers Weekly #1 bestseller I Love You Night and Day, illustrated by Alison Brown. Smriti Prasadam-Halls previously worked at the BBC and in children’s publishing and television as a writer and editor for twelve years. She lives in London with her husband and three sons.

Reviews

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for newborns on up. My grandson is really into bees and bugs and loves this black and white book with glitter images. We call him Super Bee when he wears his bee hooded bathrobe! Fun times!! <3

[Rosemary Standeven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simple, short book introducing children to ten common bugs. Each bug has page to itself, with an associated sound (for reader to speak). The illustrations are simple, but each has a bright metallic section to grab the young one’s attention.
A nice book to encourage children to look at bugs without fear.

[Christy Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

My little sister is obsessed with this book! Every time she sees it, she asks if we can read it. She loves saying "Hello" to the cute, shiny bugs. This is a great book for toddlers.

[Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun for our newborn. Love this metallic colors!

[Hum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining. Fav character was the butterfly.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading picture-books about bugs for Children's Books group. Love this one because it's for the littlest, and is just exactly educational enough. I appreciate the cheerfulness of the tiny critters, no yuckiness at all. And the vocabulary of munch, scurry, scuttle, etc. is delightful. And I love the twist ending, when we say "Bye-bye, butterfly" because after all they don't stick around long enough for a proper hello, do they?

I will look for more by the creators.

[David]

My child smiled and enjoyed the high contrast illustrations since he was 6 months old. There is hardly any text but the playful illustrations are so engaging. Even for me the adult reader, I have enjoyed exploring the subtlety needed to make effective and captivating thick lined illustrations with only three colors per image - black, white, and one metallic color. I love this book most of all because it made my son smile before I could ever figure out why he was so moved.

[Olivia S · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really simple book, just says hello to different types of bugs (who look really cool, with metallic details on a black background) and features each bug's sound. This would be good for really young kids, but it's a small board book, and I think it might work better one-on-one, so that the kids could touch the cool pictures (I would want to!)

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A favorite of the two year old in my life. we can read this non-stop. Easy to add little hand gestures to the insect noises for each page (caterpillar munching her toes or arm), a great way to introduce love of books at a young age

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute and simple introductions to greetings and common bugs for babies who are just starting to have books read and shown to them. The colorful reflective portions of each page were quite fun while not going over board and ruining the simplicity.

[Miss Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect baby gift

[Joy Reinbold · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute, sweet little take on high contrast books. My infant loves the shiny spots, too!

[Kris Dersch · Rating 3 out of 5]

The shiny pictures will attract small readers.

[Tim R · Rating 4 out of 5]

My toddler loves this little board book. I read it to her all the time, and she even "reads" it to me.

[Dillon Hargrave · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely way to learn about bugs

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh I wish there were more books in this Hello series! This and Hello Animals are my baby's #1.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great use of shiny textures and black contrast

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The high-contrast and metallic illustrations in this book mean it does a fantastic job of catching baby's attention.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gentle hello/goodbye book, in vision-friendly black and white, for the tiniest tots.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really sweet story, quick read, a different bug on each page. Shiny and a bit of color for each one.

Sent to Sophia & family. (figured for her little brother).

[Dillon Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of one note tbh, but the contrast images are nice.

[Anna Schroeder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is great because it is a high contrast book. Fiona was really interested in looking at the pictures and touching all the bugs as we read!

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

16 week old Leo was engaged.

[Catarina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pictures were shiny. Would have been more fun to incorporate the bugs noises into more of a story. Simple contrast book for newborns.

[Maeve · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reader says hello to a variety of bugs. A high-contrast board book for babies.

[Karawan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son is currently in a sign language / sing-along class. The teacher reads one book to the babies at each class and accompanies the reading with signs for the different animals pictured. This was the book of the week. I know I'll never remember all the signs just from seeing it once, but I definitely remember caterpillar and butterfly.

I like this book. It's really simple, just saying hello to all the different bugs. And the illustrations are mostly black and white with a tiny bit of color on each page. But I think it could still appeal to babies and toddlers of different ages. A toddler could learn the names of the different bugs. And a baby, even a newborn, could enjoy the simple high-contrast illustrations. I didn't do a lot of the black-and-white image books when Gavin was a newborn, but I'll be keeping this book in mind for the newborn stage when we have more children.

[Erin Reilly-Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not as big a fan of this one as "Hello, Animals!" but it still shares many of the same characteristics (short, simple, good contrast, color foil bits, cute illustrations) making it a good choice. Many of the onomatopoeia sounds for the bugs are the same thing repeated twice which just isn't as fun as saying something asymmetrical. Both books are rather fun as you can encourage your baby to respond to the book by saying "hello" back to each animal. I also like that both are a bit heavier on the black than the white which somehow feels nicer/more solid.

[Niccole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This high contrast book with foil embellishments is designed for younger babies. Unfortunately it omits some bugs that should be included like ants, fireflies, rolypoly bugs and instead dedicated space to the spider, snail, and worm. The text says hello to all of the "bugs"beginning with caterpillar except we say "bye-bye, butterfly" though there is no connection between the caterpillar and butterfly.

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfectly suited for two's and under, a cheerful bug is presented on each page. The text prompts the adult to say, "Hello, __________ (bug's name)". There are some additional verbs to share with each bug such as "scurry, scurry", "munch, munch", "buzz, buzz", "crick, crick" and so forth.

Children love touching the shiny colored foil painted on each bug. They love greeting the bug with a "hello!". They quickly add the names of the bugs to their vocabulary.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is so simple it's great. It's basically just an early introduction to various insects and other creepy crawlies. The fun comes with performing the various actions of them.

The illustrations are great because they are uncomplicated black and white with reflective surfaces and the occasional splash of color.

Fun and simple.