Crawly School for Bugs: Poems to Drive You Buggy

Writing in rhyme, Harrison imagines a day at a school for insects, who take classes in camouflage, try to control their predatory instincts, and visit the nurse, a mosquito whose prescription for any ailment is to draw blood. Using both traditional and digital media, Bayless offers comedic scenes of anthropomorphic insects decked out in clothes with room for all of their arms. A horsefly stares glumly at a report card that lists a D- for social skills (“Even though/ I feel remorse,/ I must go out/ and bite a horse”), and in “bird class” an array of bugs stand still as can be in the grass as an avian shadow looms (“Don’t twitch a leg./ Don’t shift a wing./ Don’t turn your head./ Don’t move a thing!”). Readers’ school days will look downright dull by comparison. Ages 5–9. Illustrator’s agent: John Cusick, Folio Literary Management. (Mar.)