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The Icky Bug Counting Book: A book report

Over a month ago I did my first book report for this blog and said I'd do some periodic reports on books that I feel miss the mark a bit for one reason or another. Perhaps they have run on sentences, innapropriate material or are have mistakes.

Well time flies... and here's the second installment, which is really the first because the original post was a good book.

Here goes.

Cute cover

The book I did a report on is called The Icky Bug Counting Book by Jerry Pallotta and illustrated by his bestest friend in the world Ralph Masiello.

The Icky Bug book is about icky bugs. It has icky bugs in it and it has numbers too...

Damn I loved those kind of book reports.

We don't own this book so I won't say it's the most thorough  report but what do you expect...it's like 32 pages and that's a lot.

Anyway it starts out all cute, and with number one which is a fantastic place to start a counting book.

One

Then the next 14 numbers are great. Some good info, maybe a cute story or nice picture.

But at 16 something goes horribly wrong...we meet the kissing bug. 

Do not count the dead grasshopper.
Holy shit...carnage in a kid's book. Now I'm not the kind of person who's going to shelter my son from stuff. I want him to know all the gross things about bugs and life and yes even death. But carnage on number sixteen.

Why is that grasshopper dead daddy? Why does the kissing bug bite other bugs in the face? Are you going to bite me in the face when you kiss me?

How am I going to answer those? The answer to the third will probably be hell yes, you've done it to me a hundred times. But I'm not really prepared to get into the face biting, grasshopper killing bug on bug warfare right now.

Now you could say it's a book for older kids. And when I looked on Amazon it says it's for 4 to 8 year-olds...but it's a freaking board book. 

If you've been reading this blog for awhile you know I pretty much know nothing about kids...it's true. I think I'm pretty good with kids that are a week shy of 11 months old but beyond that I have no idea. Plus  I still get their ages mixed up.

So do 4 to 8 year-olds still read board books? If so I guess the book can get appropriate. And I guess you can argue that it's appropriate for MF because he won't know what I'm talking about.

I just feel that he'll be past board books by then. I mean he's already reading Sneetches (and other stories) to us. He seems to be more interested in the other stories part as he sits straight up, holds the book, opens up (usually to What Was I Scared Of?) and then reads to us. It comes out pfthpffppt (or however you spell that.)

Any way that's it. Cool idea for a book, not great for super young kids because of the killer bugs. However it got great reviews on Amazon...and it supposedly has a secret in it...but I think I read it in a spoiler review.

Anyway this book review is probably a bit better than the type you do in elementary school...but probably not by much.
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