Bug Muldoon: The Garden of Fear - booktalk: intermediate

By Paul Shipton; illustrated by Elwood H. Smith. Viking, 2001; 138 pages; $15.99 (Gr. 3-7).

The best, cheapest, and only private eye in the whole Garden, sleuth Bug Muldoon, a wisecracking Sam Spade kind of guy, takes on the case of missing Eddie the Earwig only to find there are sinister forces at work in the neighborhood. When the Queen of the Ants' Nest summons Bug to track down a group of subversive ants who belong to an Individualist club, Bug teams up with grasshopper Velma, a hard-nosed reporter, and the two of them step into danger at every turn.

ACTIVITY: As a homework assignment or class field trip, have children list and sketch all the bugs they can spot in their yards or on the playground. They can identify ones they don't know by looking them up in a good insect book from the 595.5 shelf in your library, Research the life cycles of the many intriguing insects in the story to ascertain how facts were integrated into the narrative.

JUDY FREEMAN, children's literature consultant and workshop presenter (BKWSSF@aol.com), is the author of several books including More Books Kids Will Sit Still For (Bowker/Greenwood, 1995).

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