Bug Books for Kids

This adorable picture book kicks off with the premise that bugs are completely different from people, especially bug babies. However, readers will soon discover the similarities between human babies and insect babies. This engaging, playful text is accompanied by funny, charming illustrations of insects, from the ambrosia beetle to the rainbow dung beetle. Drawings are humorous yet still accurate, with an author’s note depicting drawings of the actual insects. No close-up photographs of the actual bugs are seen, so this is a nice light introduction to bugs for young children or caregivers who might need to be eased into the world of insects. 

The winner of the 2023 Orbis and Pictus Award for Nonfiction for Children, this picture book traces the lifecycle of a honeybee through the lens of the birth and death of one single honeybee, nicknamed Apis, in this book. The luminous drawings feel like oil paintings that zoom in lovingly on each delicate feature of the fuzzy, humming honeybee. The warmth depicted in the paintings and in the hive echo the warm, honeyed sentences of the book that make it a perfect read-aloud story to be appreciated by children and adult beekeepers alike.

This picture book is all about the most evocative of insects–the firefly–and is reminiscent of Eric Carle, with the same whimsical collage artwork and short, active sentences. This nonfiction book follows the life cycle of a firefly, from pupa to larvae to full-grown firefly. Each page also features smaller print text on the bottom to provide more scientific information for adults to provide more context or explanation to curious children. This book is perfect for reading during the summer months, as children explore the outdoors and see fireflies in all their glowing glory. 

Possibly inspired by that popular yet slightly macabre nursery rhyme, “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” this odd but highly fascinating book features the myriad ways a fly can be eaten. From the expected and usual – such as wrapped (by a spider) or liquefied (by a Venus flytrap) to the surprising (using a bat sonar) and downright creepy (zombiefied, via a brain-eating fungus). You’ll never think about that old nursery rhyme the same way again. Hand this book to little kids who don’t mind being slightly grossed out – and who will delight in sharing these unusual facts with others.

Have a tween who is a bug-loving activist? This scientific mystery will have your budding entomologist and farmer raring to do more to save the bees. This book will hook a reader from the outset, kicking off with a mysterious disappearance of 30,000 worker bees from a beekeeper’s hives. This book doesn’t provide quick and easy answers, providing additional context for the importance of honeybees and background information (replete with appropriate, interesting photographs) before exploring the possible multiple causes behind the colony collapse that began in 2006.

This is a lift-the-flap book designed for kid cartographers who love their insects! Moving from continent to continent, this beautifully designed book has multiple flaps with interesting factoids, gorgeous illustrations, and intricate closeup photographs. Each fold-out page features mini-paragraphs as well as the scientific metadata for each insect, such as its common name, scientific Latin name, the type of climate it exists in, and typical size. If you know a kid who loves maps, atlases, and animals and can often be found poring over DK Eyewitness books, this book provides the perfect combination. 

We know you can grow corn, wheat, potatoes, or even chickens on a farm. What about butterflies? This book shows you how a butterfly farm in Costa Rica operates and sends its beautiful crop all over the world to teach people about butterflies. Each page of this book has full-color photographs depicting every stage of a butterfly pupa’s life cycle and how and where it might end up, be it in a screened greenhouse in South America or a museum in Boston. The thought that you can receive a cardboard box on your doorstep with tiny green chrysalises inside it that will turn into large, glimmering blue butterflies seems almost magical, kind of like the process of metamorphosis itself.

If you haven’t been convinced about the incredible and unusual characteristics of insects, this book, which equates the powers of superheroes to the powers of these tiny but powerful insects, will provide compelling evidence to prove its claim! Sure to charm comic book readers, this book combines the style of comic book trading cards and scientific field guides to describe various insects. Grouped by “superpowers” such as speed, strength, chemical weaponry, and camouflage, this book is written in a highly engaging and vivacious style to heighten the interest and the information about these insects.

This detailed nonfiction book reads like a highly engaging human interest story or insect history. It might have seemed like we have always known about the monarch butterfly migration, but this book opens with the fascinating story of how difficult it actually was to track butterflies and the two researchers who managed to discover the trail of the monarch butterfly. Fast forward to 2014 and the lowest monarch butterfly migration ever recorded and citizen scientists are being called upon to help protect this epic and beautiful insect migration. Whether they are historians or activists, readers of this book will be intrigued and inspired to plant native pollinators and think more carefully and respectfully about these orange and black mariposas that span the American continent.

Another entry in this popular series, insects were obviously going to be the heavyweight champion in this category! With their multiple cool powers and deadly venom, this is a matchup for the ages. Whether it is pitting the black widow spider against the dragonfly or the cicada versus the tarantula, kid readers are going to revel in discovering who would win the ultimate bug rumble. Keen scientific readers will probably want to scour the other books on this list to find even more cool insects and design their own bug rumble.

This book is a history of the world…with insects! These tiny, annoying creatures have affected the course of human events, from the reliance on silkworms for global trading to the mosquito-induced plagues of the Age of Exploration to the more recent use of fruit flies in genetic scientific research. Told in a mostly chronological fashion, the author traces the long history of human-insect interactions from the earliest epidemics to present-day chemical sprays. Teen readers will love the pun-filled titles, detailed descriptions and the ability to both read in depth and dip in and out.

For teens who enjoy reading Bill Bryson’s natural history books, such as A Walk in the Woods or The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Brenna Maloney’s book is a similarly engaging, insouciant, yet highly informative read about bugs. Her book is divided into refreshingly non-scientific chapters, such as “Cleanup on Aisle Four,” which is really all about the fascinating history of forensic entomology, where insect life cycles are used by detectives to solve murder cases, or “Scope and Scale,” in which Maloney talks about buying caterpillars for her home or being stung by her own bees. The best part about this book is the personal stories and lively sense of humor that weaves in and out of the story of insects and how weirdly wonderful they are. 

If the previous book’s appeal lies in the small-scale domesticity of the author’s interactions with bugs, this book by veteran environmentalist Victoria Hird goes to the opposite end of the spectrum, taking a long and macro lens to the importance of bugs and what we can do to help save the planet by re-bugging it. Although Hird revels in astounding us with facts and data, the beauty of this book is in the intimate voice and shared personal experience (such as her giraffe-necked weevil tattoo), which makes her an authentic clarion call to save our climate from insects. From quiet personal stories, like the life-changing ant farm she received, to the list of tips for future bug lobbyists, this will be a book that other teen bug enthusiasts and activists will treasure.

This book is a budding engineer’s dream! A beautifully illustrated picture book, it helps kids understand the basic biology of an insect. Bugs can seem creepy to humans since they are so vastly different from us. This book helps unpeel the hard layers of the insect body and render them curious and intriguing rather than disturbing. The book’s premise is that of an inventor’s workshop, crafting together a cool new creation. Each page provides a top-down view of a workbench, slotting together the next piece of insect anatomy, starting with the head, then the thorax and abdomen, and then comes the multiple versions of legs, antennae, feet, mandibles, and spiracles! Using simple yet careful language, this book highlights the differences (and similarities) between humans and bugs, as well as distinguishes between the different categories of insects in a fun yet accessible way. Kid readers and educators alike will itch to design their own insect after reading this book! 

For young explorers who are ready to venture outside but not too far from their backyard, this book, written by a practicing entomologist, will provide all the tools they will need to do some bug-hunting on their own. With clear photographs to help them identify the bugs they will see in their own backyard (in North America) and activities and fact sheets to help them further engage and learn about these creatures, this is an excellent introductory book to have for their first forays into insect exploration.

This is an excellent accompaniment book to any classroom or homeschool that will try out seeing the wonderful process of metamorphosis with their own eyes. Butterfly kits are easily attainable (you can even get them in the mail!), and educators/caregivers could read this book to see if it is something they want to try or as a read-aloud to start off a unit that will feature some interactive learning. The clear pictures and short, clear sentences make it an easy and accessible read for kids and educators alike. 

This handy pocket-sized book makes it easy for young entomologists to carry it around as they head off for their bug-hunting adventures. Each section has full-color photographs and is grouped into short categories, beginning with an introduction to their definitions and lifestyle before chunking into habitats. There are helpful activities designed to help bug hunters find or identify bugs in the wild. They have helpful photographs of all the materials needed and clear instructions for how to complete and use the activities, such as creating a ladybug home or building a backyard butterfly feeder. 

This hilarious picture book is written in a wry, humorous tone but is chockful of facts about a whole variety of spiders! Read this book with a young child; they will love learning new facts, laughing about the highly relatable jokes about spiders and enjoy “squishing” the book’s pages with their fingers. Hopefully, by the end of this book, they will also learn to get over their fear of spiders! 

Another fun entry in this graphic novel nonfiction series, this comic about spiders is, of course, narrated by a spider in a basement, wearing a lab coat. This spider narrates the history and contributions of spiders to two children who had ventured into the basement after much trepidation, probably a highly relatable activity to many kid readers. Although less of an engaging story narrative as history comics, nonfiction kid readers will like the graphic novel format that will make it easier for them to engage with the material and retain information as it is told in a dialogue rather than streams of text. 

Unlike the previously mentioned books, this edition of National Geographic stays strictly realistic with no drawings and illustrations – which makes sense given their library of incredible photographs. Every page is a feast for the eyes in this book featuring all kinds of landscapes and animals. Many of the animals in this book are insects – such as fireflies and glowworms, but it also features other animals that glow, such as the anglerfish or comb jellyfish. Some animals, which could be bugs but are actually arthropods, also glow, like the scorpion. Kid biologists will love expanding their horizons and learning about the why and how of animals glowing. Finally, another added benefit of this book is the way it breaks down the text into partner sections, alternating pages of simpler text and more complicated ones, allowing older and younger readers to create a shared experience. Learning about bugs (and bug-like creatures) is always more fun when you have someone to share it with!