A Field Guide to Household Bugs: It's a Jungle in Here

By Joshua Abarbanel and Jeff Swimmer

Book Overview

Welcome to your domestic jungle! We are not alone. A Field Guide to Household Bugs is a tongue-in-cheek field guide to the menagerie of colorful and fascinating bloodsuckers, web-weavers, and pillow-jumpers that live invisibly in our homes. Each chapter features bold graphics and amazing microphotography of the Wild Kingdom? we can find in our beds, kitchens, bathrooms, and even on our bodies. From patient bedbugs to tenacious dust mites, from not-nice lice to irritating earwigs, A Field Guide to Household Bugs brings us face-to-face with all the fearsome if microscopic creatures we pretend don?t exist. Whether they cry Cool!? or Eeeeeeeek!? obsessive compulsives, and nature enthusiasts will be kept up for hours with this fun field guide to our tiny roommates.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452288746
• ISBN13: 9780452288744
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Plume
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.1" x 0.4" x 5.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Wow! This Book is Super Creepy!

Even though I consider myself a big fan of horror films, I was ill prepared for the emotional pounding delivered by "A Field Guide to Household Bugs". Give me Jason or Damien or Freddie, but dont tell me about the millions upon millions of uninvited guests that are feeding on me and my home. YIKES! I am being eaten alive! Literally. The book is a riot. It is written in such a way that both children and adults alike will find the humor and the horror. The scanning electron micrographs are as brilliant as they are terror-inducing. Not for the timid. The writing is crisp and titillating. You will find your children gathered in a corner both clutching at the pages and wretching in disgust. I will never sleep on that old favorite pillow again. Let us hope that authors elect not to write a sequel about the unwanted creatures of the car or office. Too ghastly. But compelling.

marine biologist loves book!

As a parent and sience educator, I am always looking for ways to integrate scientific knowledge and fun into my students' and kids' lives--this book does it! A witty, clever, and accurate portrayal of bugs surrounding us, even in the comforts of home. Highly recommended--my second grader read chapters of it for her class reading and set about to put hair strengthener in her hair after learning that lice prefer thin hair!

fun, offbeat read

An unexpected pleasure. The contemporaty graphics and wry writing style really drew me in. Great stocking stuffer for the holiday season.

Laudatory

I detest bugs! I try very hard to pretend I live in a bug-free world, but Jeff Swimmer and Josh Abarbanel soon took that delusion away! But, what a great way to lose my fantasy. This book was so funny and so relaxed about the menace of these bugs, that I think I was able to shed my prejudices. I have a bug swatter in every room- I think I'm going to try to understand the critters and feel compassionate about them after reading about their lives. . .after all, they have things they don't like as well. We're not so different after all. Thanks to the authors. I'd love to meet you two. You must be extremely funny in person, Linda Levine

Even non-bug lovers will like this book

This is a highly entertaining look at the domestic bug world that will be enjoyed even by those who want nothing to do with bugs. The writing style is wry and gentle and the highly magnified pictures are stunning. A great gift for kids into science and nature.