Face to Face with Caterpillars (review)

Usually a human-caterpillar face-off is a pretty uneven encounter, but Murawski's dramatic closeup photos of these surprisingly elaborate creepers give readers a chance for serious inspection. Though this has more than just the title in common with Charlesbridge's imported Face to Face natural history series (Tracqui's Face-to-Face with the Lady Bug, BCCB 10/02), it's more sophisticated and dramatic. Lively prose ("Imagine what it's like to grow up as an insect") touches on Murawski's photographic travails as well as covering important caterpillar topics such as diet and self-defense, and sidebars on subjects such as "How to Find Caterpillars" and "How to See Like a Caterpillar" add browsability. Mostly, though, kids will just page through and peer at the riveting photographs, picking up the odd tidbit about stinging spines and toxic vomit along the way. Ultimately, this is an inviting intermediate step for kids not ready for the details of the Scientists in the Field series (Sy Montgomery's The Tarantula Scientist, BCCB 4/04, etc.) but still intrigued by the natural world. End matter offers suggestions for creating and protecting butterfly habitat and observing caterpillars, plus a compact overview of facts (including a habitat map keyed to book mentions), a glossary and list of further resources, and an index.