Evie LOVES bugs, but those around her don’t share her enthusiasm. And when her extended family is coming for a reunion, her two moms say she has to stay inside and help get the house ready, rather than be outside studying bugs. Evie then hatches a plan to do both, by bringing her bugs inside. When her relatives arrive the next day, however, Evie’s bugs have escaped, and soon they’re causing chaos at the family meal.
Luckily, Evie finds an ally in her Great-Gran, a fellow bug enthusiast, who helps Evie make a bug hotel—outside—where her crawling, flying friends can be happy. Her moms affirm that they’re actually proud of her passion, and Great-Gran agrees that her curious mind may lead her to wonders.
The rhyming text by Lily Murray is a delight, often using repetition to emphasize the action: “Evie fetches a bucket/a jam jar, a broom,/collecting up insects to take to her room.” Some of the lines, too, are pure humor: “‘Oh my goodness!’ says Ma. ‘What’s that—in the mousse?
This room’s full of BUGS!/AND THEY’RE ALL ON THE LOOSE!'”
The illustrations by Jenny Løvlie are dynamic and detailed, with playfully drawn characters and lots and lots of bugs crawling over them.
Backmatter includes ideas for looking after bugs near (but outside!) one’s own home, and a page about entomologist Evelyn Cheesman, London Zoo’s first female Insect House Curator.
My only quibble is when Great-Gran says, “I can’t help but notice a worm in your hand./Is this insect invasion all part of your plan?” Worms, of course, are not insects—nor are slugs or snails, which also get mentioned as part of Evie’s collection. If we take the Dictionary.com definition of “bug” as “any insect or insectlike invertebrate,” though, we can rightly accept the mention of worms, slugs, and snails as “bugs”—but I would have changed the one sentence that equates “worm” with “insect,” which has a more specific meaning. (“Fly” or “Gnat” are one-syllable alternatives that might have worked.)
Nevertheless, I recommend this lively, fun story that encourages STEM exploration, and in which the fact of two moms is incidental to the tale.
Evie, her brother, and one of the moms read as White; the other mom has light brown skin and black curly hair and could be read as a variety of racial/ethnic identities.
(Released in 2023 in the U.K,; first U.S. edition in 2024.)
