18 March 2021 THE BUG IN THE BOG by Jonathan Fenske, Simon Spotlight, December 2020, 32p., ISBN: 978-1-5344-7724-7
“Oh, my plans didn’t work out like I thought
‘Cause I had laid my trap for you but it seems like I got caught
What’s this whole world comin’ to
Things just ain’t the same
Any time the hunter gets captured by the game”
-- Smokey Robinson (1966)
“See the bug in the bog.
See the bug on a log.
See the bug watch the muddy bog bubble. (POP!)
The bug sits. The bug sings.
The bug thinks happy thoughts,
never dreaming there could be some trouble.”
Surprise endings are so much fun!
There’s an old 1984 picture book by British author/illustrator Tony Ross that I’ve shared with generations of kids. I’M COMING TO GET YOU! features a hairy monster from outer space who has been eating planets right and left. Now, he’s heading to Earth to get a little boy. But, in the end, the monster turns out to be around the size of a grapefruit or a coconut.
Other surprise-ending favs include ALAN’S BIG SCARY TEETH (Jarvis, 2016); THE WOLF’S CHICKEN STEW (Keiko Kasza, 1987); BARK GEORGE (Jules Feiffer, 1999); and I WANT MY HAT BACK (Jon Klassan, 2011).
THE BUG IN THE BOG is a level one beginning reader. It features a bug and a frog, some mud and some fog, and a surprise twist of an ending. Kids will marvel over the twist and will love the rhythm and rhyme.
I’d pair this with Raffi’s version of “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” and a poem from my childhood, Karla Kuskin’s “A Bug Sat in a Silver Flower.”
Richie Partington, MLIS
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