Chirping Crickets

by Melvin Berger, Megan Lloyd (Illustrator)

Overview

Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

That's the sound crickets make. You've probably heard them chirp on a summer evening. But did you know that they make their chirping sounds by rubbing their wings together, and that only male crickets can chirp?

Inside this book you'll learn about crickets, and even how to tell the temperature by counting a cricket's chirps.

Melvin Berger and Megan Lloyd have created a wonderful introduction to a fascinating insect: the cricket.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780064451802
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/28/1998
Series:	Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science Series: Level 2
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	211,050
Product dimensions:	9.81(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.07(d)
Lexile:	590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Melvin Berger is the author of many classic LRFOs, including Germs Make Me Sick!, Oil Spills! and Why I Cough, Sneeze, Shiver, Hiccup, and Yawn, as well as other nonfiction on the Harper backlist. He lives in East Hampton, NY.

Megan Lloyd has illustrated more than forty books for children, including The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, Thanksgiving at the Tappletons' by Eileen Spinelli, and The Mixed-Up Rooster by Pamela Duncan Edwards. She lives with her husband on a farm in Pennsylvania, where she raises sheep, chickens, and cows. Some of the rabbits from her vegetable garden have even been kind enough to allow Ms. Lloyd to sketch them as models for this book.

Editorial Reviews

Text and illustrations provide information about the life cycle, anatomy, and behavior (including the chirping) of several varieties of crickets. The attractive, atmospheric illustrations include some dramatic close-ups. Hands-on activities include advice on caring for a pet cricket, making a model, telling temperature with a cricket, and making a chirping sound, and jumping like a cricket. This title is considered a Stage 2 in the "Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science" series.

Children's Literature - Linnea Hendrickson

K-Gr 2--A general introduction to the physical characteristics, life cycle, and behavior of this insect. The text is clear and simple but the sentences are occasionally choppy. The full-page, rainbow-hued watercolors are accurately rendered and do a good job of representing the text. Readers' curiosity is sure to be piqued by the inclusion of interesting facts (a cricket's chirping can be used to determine the temperature outside). A final section offers suggestions for making a model, jumping like a cricket, and playing a "Do You Know?" game. An attractive title that will enhance nature collections.--Michele Snyder, Chappaqua Public Library, NY

School Library Journal

To human listeners, cricket songs announce that summer can't last forever; their evening chirps forecast falling leaves, cooler temperatures, and the start of school in the not-so-distant future. But for crickets, chirping is the mating song of male crickets, rubbing their front wings together, which females "hear" through membranes on their knees. These familiar insects seem a natural subject for the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series; Berger (How Life Began, 1991, etc.) describes their life cycles and their basic anatomy in an accessible, lively way. Lloyd's pictures are large and colorful; captions point out the knee ears and the sound-producing parts of the wings. Easy projects are included, as is a tidy formula for figuring out the temperature from the number of cricket chirps per minute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews