CREEPY CRAWLIES

A young cat’s idle tour of her house and yard draws together this introduction to the flies, fleas, mice, roaches, earwigs, birds and other common domestic denizens she—and readers—might encounter. Goede depicts each creature with casual naturalism, in both a (generally) ground-level setting, and with an individual portrait on the same page, the latter captioned by floating paragraphs of basic, often cautionary information: “Cockroaches live in houses that aren’t very clean.” Though blackbirds, robins and blue titmice don’t really fit into the “creepy crawly” category the way, say, the ticks and bedbugs do, this effectively keys readers of both squeamish and non-squeamish temperament into the idea that the natural world is usually closer than it might at first appear. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)