THE BUG HOUSE FAMILY RESTAURANT
by Beverley Brenna ; illustrated by Marc Mongeau
Insects are on the menu in this collection of food-related verse.
Mannered ink-and-wash drawings of bug cuisine and the stylish diners who consume it accompany rhymed introductions to both. Poems range from a tally of “Daily Specials” (“Each mosquito’s sliced and fried / And served with spiders on the side”) to introductions to restaurant regulars like “Hervis and Eddy,” terrible twins who “dined every night on tarantula skins.” Brenna’s lyrics are short, regular of meter and rhyme scheme and more easily digestible than most of the food. Along with reliably gross-out entries for bug sushi, ladybug soup, “[s]lick and oozy,” beetleburgers and the ever-popular chocolate-covered bees, the author, a native Canadian, adds several regional dishes to the menu: “But…spiders are a Saskatchewan snack, / A Saskatchewan snack, / A Saskatchewan snack! / Spiders are a Saskatchewan snack, / And we eat them a leg at a time!”
Tasty and, as bugs show signs of becoming even more common menu items in the near future, timely too.
(introduction) (Poetry. 6-8)