Tag Archives: fiction

The Fly

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Title: The Fly
Author/Illustrator: Elise Gravel
Published By: Scholastic, 2014

There are three types of people in the world: those who love fiction, those who love non-fiction and those who love both (especially when they come together in a hilarious series of picture books).*

I’m the third type of person, if that wasn’t totally obvious. I love both fictional and non-fictional books, and I especially love the blending of fantastic and realistic elements.

When I first saw Elise Gravel’s books that featured some truly gross main characters, I was intrigued. These books are part of the ‘Disgusting Critters’ series, and they feature such memorable protagonists as:

  • The Fly
  • The Mosquito
  • The Toad
  • The Slug

And many others…including my least favourite of the bunch, head lice. (Fun side note: when my brother and I were in elementary school, about 200/500 kids got head lice one year. My mother was so grossed out by the concept of bugs in our hair that she told us that if we came home with lice, she would kill us. We didn’t know if she was serious or not, but suffice it to say, we didn’t chance it.)

Anyway, these books are fantastic. Despite having moments of super-grossness (like the part in The Fly where the fly is barfing digestive liquids onto its food to soften it), the books are super-informative. My girls absolutely loved this series when they were in senior kindergarten/first grade. They thought it was hilarious…and they actually learned a bunch of fun facts! For instance, in The Spider, they learned that spiders can live in almost any environment. In The Bat, they learned that bats are the only mammals that can fly. In The Rat, they learned that rats are garbage-eating disease spreaders.**

Okay, so all the facts aren’t fun. But they are factual!

The art is adorable (I mean, as adorable as disgusting critters can be), and the text is engaging and entertaining. If you’re hoping to learn some interesting (and super-gross) facts about your (least) favourite critter, this is the series for you!

* Okay, there are probably more types of people in the world than this. Like those who don’t like books at all. But do they really count? Like, really?

*sigh* okay, fine, they do.

** I know lots of rats are adorable and make great pets. But…they’re also objectively kinda creepy.

What Do You Do…

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When you don’t like a book?

That’s what I’m going to discuss today. Why? Because I took two picture books out of the library yesterday and I chose them solely based on their covers. (I know, I know.) I had high hopes. Both books had kind of a fun, friendly vibe. Both books appeared, on the outside, to be something that they very much weren’t on the inside.

The long and short of it is: I didn’t like them. Either of them. I wouldn’t have read them to my kids (if they were still picture book aged), and I wouldn’t buy them for our home library. They were strange in a not-good way, and both stories were really, really shallow. I. Didn’t. Like. Them. At. All.

So, as a reviewer, I wouldn’t have many positive things to say about them. But those not-positive things would be honest. And maybe they’d stop someone from choosing these books in the future.

Which, I don’t know. Is that fair?

There have been books that I have absolutely LOVED that others have not. And vice versa. An example? You know I’ve got one.

I’ve recently been reading The Professor and the Madman (it’s about the making of the OED), and I’ve gotta be honest…it’s a slow read for me. I’m a huge word-nerd, so I was excited to read this one…but…I’ve had to set page goals for myself each day. I WANT to get through it, it’s just taking forever. So, in hopes of finding some like-minded friends, I checked Goodreads and found that many, many people felt the same way as I did. Whew. I’m not alone. But OTHER people absolutely loved it. Like, adored the book.

In terms of reviewing kid-lit, it feels more personal to me. As a writer myself, I know how hard it is to actually GET a book to the publishing stage, to go through the editing process/waiting process/more waiting…and then to get the book reviewed! It’s scary. It’s nerve-wracking. A bad review can make your day so, so awful.

So, to that end, I’m going to do what I’ve always done: I’m going to review books I like. I’m not all about ‘positive vibes only,’ (I hate that saying, actually), but I also don’t believe in giving a totally negative review. If there are one or two things I dislike, sure. But if the whole book is a no for me, I’m just going to load it back in the car and ship it back to the library.*

*The one exception to this is my really old, really crappy picture book collection. Those books are from at least 30-40 years ago, and they’re all objectively terrible.