Locust Pocus!: A Book to Bug You

Filled with amusing illustrations, a rollicking collection of poetry celebrates the wonderful word of bugs, from roaches running around in your cereal bowl and spiders spinning webs while you sleep to lice constructing a house in your hair!

Kindergarten-Grade 4-A lively selection of original poems about insects from crickets and spiders to mayflies and water bugs. The selections are short and snappy, zany and memorable. Egielski has hit his stride here, using watercolors to create wonderful illustrations that perfectly mirror the mood set by McKelvey's verse: a roach hangs off the spoonful of cereal a young boy is poised to swallow; lice build "impromptu houses" on the top of a boy's head; a girl falls backward as the chair she is sitting in is devoured by termites. The large pictures, several of them double-page spreads, are quite creepy. Readers are certain to go buggy over Locust Pocus!-Meghan R. Malone, Turner Free Library, Randolph, MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

McKelvey (The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog) waxes eloquent on things that crawl, flutter and buzz in this compendium, fittingly illustrated by Egielski (Jazper; The Web Files). One concise sentence, densely packed with double entendres, alliteration and metaphors, summarizes each bug. The results are lyrical but not too pretty, and the close-up pictures gleefully accentuate the gross. Some images present unsuspecting victims, as in the boy who takes a heaping spoonful of roach-infested cereal ("Roaches roam/ among the dishes,/ inconspicuous/ [be suspicious!]"), and the sleeping girl who accommodates a bloodsucker ("Mosquitoes dine on/ old and young / vampire bugs/ with straws for tongues!"). Other watercolor paintings show unsmiling, zombiefied children looking dumbstruck with horror. One dismayed boy wears woolens ventilated by holes ("Musty moths munch/ winter clothing,/ not disarming,/ but disrobing"), and a startled farm kid spies the title critter among green, gnawed stumps ("Locust pocus/ on the crocus,/ strip the crops/ and do provoke us"). Egielski's malicious, carnival-colorful illustrations put the sting in McKelvey's skillful serenades. Ages 3-7.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 3-6. This wonderfully gross poem is sure to make kids itch as it gleefully describes various bugs and their errant ways. Sophisticated vocabulary (perch, thicket, pallid, and impromptu, for example) is effortlessly combined with such simple onomatopoeic words as munch and squinch to create a wonderful read-aloud rhythm. The bugs manage to be both cute and disgusting as they wiggle their way in and out of cereal bowls, clothing, and beds. The fun starts on the copyright page with the normally dull publication and imprint information arranged to mimic a fly's flight path, and the main illustrations are colorful, witty, and chockablock with amusing details. Sure to delight youngsters who will both "ooh" and "eew" over the contents for many readings. Marta Segal
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