Are you guilty of choosing your books because the cover appeals to you? I'm always advising our students to delve deeper than the cover to find some swans within those ugly duckling covers.
This week, however, I was guilty of book cover love. Well, book page edge art love, to be specific. Take a look at that beetle art on M.G. Leonard's debut book, 'Beetle Boy'. Those gorgeously patterned, colourful bugs called to me! Of course, I couldn't resist and I'm so glad that I didn't.
Beetle Boy is the first in Leonard's Beetle Trilogy. It has a Roald Dahlesque quality to it, with intriguing and unusual characters including a creepy villain with a penchant for bugs and an eccentric archaeologist Uncle.
When 13 year old Darkus' father doesn't return home one night, and the Police don't seem to want to investigate his disappearance with any gusto, Darkus and his Uncle Max, along with his two new friends, Virginia and Bertolt, take matters into their own hands. This is a fast-paced, well-written mystery for students 8 years and older.
The inclusion of The Entemologists Dictionary at the conclusion of this story provides young insect-loving readers with scientific information about the terms used in the book, and hopefully, will encourage them to explore insects further.
Learn more about the bug-loving M.G. Leonard at http://www.mgleonard.com/beetleboy
What's your favourite book cover/art?