Creepy Creatures Books

Creepy Creatures Crickets
by Valerie Bodden

You are outside on a dark summer night.
You hear strange music that seems to come from the grass.
What could it be?
It is the sound of crickets chirping.


With close-up photographs of crickets and their predators, and direct, short sentences about size and characteristics of these insects, the book immediately appealed to me. Some pages with cut-out pictures on a stark white background served to focus our attention on the details of the creature.

And it looks like it has caught the attention of the resident 4 year old who seems to be interested in the natural world around him these days, choosing to read more non-fiction animal picture books than others.

There are half-a dozen books in this Creepy Creatures series - Centipedes, Scorpions, Mantises, Spiders, Worms that we've learnt about so far.

The last page of each book offers  "Make a..." section showing us to do something simple. Like, Centipedes book has "Make a Centipede" with instructions to make a centipede from Popsicle stick and yarn. The simplicity of it impressed me which inspired us to make one.

Crickets book offers "Make a Cricket's Song" where we are encouraged to rub a comb with a stick to "sing" like a cricket - i.e., make the sound the crickets make by rubbing one wing against the ridge on the other wing. Which Oggie did with unbridled joy.

Glossary and Read More sections along with Websites for listening to the sounds and viewing more pictures online are quite helpful to complete our study.