I’M A PILL BUG

Rare is the diaper-clad observer who hasn’t marveled at this slow-moving creature with the intriguing tendency to curl into a tiny ball; here’s an import designed to answer any questions that might come up. The information is basic but specific; in simple terms the many-legged narrator shows where pill bugs are found, what they eat and excrete—“As soon as we eat, we poop (lots and lots of square-shaped poop)”—what eats them, how they grow and how they differ from such similar mites as insects and woodlice. Dark gray and thumb-sized or smaller on the page, the pill bugs in Takahashi’s torn-paper collages present an air of lowly harmlessness in keeping with the closing invitation to keep a few (for a while) in a modest terrarium for closer study. Nourishing fare for young naturalists-in-the-bud. (Picture book/nonfiction. 3-5)