Poetry Friday - A Review of Bustle in the Bushes

I know a lot of adults who don't like insects of any kind. Or spiders. Or snails and slugs. However, most children are fascinated by these little creatures. They keep beetles and snails as pets, and spend hours looking for insects and their relatives in yards and gardens.

In today's poetry title we are going to visit a garden to see what kinds of little critters we can find. Does anyone have a jar and a butterfly net handy?

Bustle in the Bushes

Giles Andreae

Illustrated by David Wojtowycz

Poetry Picture Book

For ages 4 to 7

Tiger Tales, 2012, 978-1-58925-109-0

   If you visit your backyard and if you are very quiet, you might hear rustling in the bushes and a buzzing in the flowers. Get down closer to the ground, and you might see a ladybug marching across a leaf, a bee hovering over a blossom, or a dragonfly zipping to and fro in front of your nose. Let’s take a journey into a bookish backyard on a “lovely summer’s day” to find “minibeasts” who “want to come and play.”

   The first creature we find is a snail who slowly slides across the ground. The snail accounts for its slowness by explaining that we too would be slow if we “had to carry / Your house on your back.” Not far off are four slugs who, unlike their relative the snail, do not carry their houses around with them, which is why they hide under flowerpots and stones.

   Later on we meet an earwig who is standing on a twig. The creature tells us that it likes to eat plants and rotten trees. This may seem like strange to you, but what is stranger still is that the earwig has “pinchers on my bottom!”

   Then there are some grasshoppers whose long legs make them excellent jumpers. The amazing thing is grasshoppers can also make music with their legs by rubbing them together.

   Many children love looking for and learning about insects and other small creatures that are commonly found in gardens and yards. In this delightful book, we get to meet and find out about a wide variety of “minibeasts” who live in several different kinds of micro environments. With rhyming bouncy poems and bright illustrations, now children can experience the “Bustle in the Bushes” wherever they are.