Published by Millbrook Press

Summary:  The monarchs are missing?  Some of them are, anyway.  In the last two decades, the monarch butterfly population has steeply declined.  How can we even know how many monarchs there are?  The answer to that goes back to the 1960’s when scientists first discovered the areas in Mexico where monarchs spend the winter.  Since then, they’ve taken annual measurements of the area the butterflies inhabit to get a rough estimate of the population.  There’s no agreement in the scientific community about why there are so many fewer monarchs today, but some theories include climate change, new pesticides, and agricultural methods that have impacted milkweed, the butterflies’ main food source.  Kids can help by planting milkweed and other wildflowers that provide nectar for the monarchs during their migration south.  Includes an author’s note, glossary, 3 books for further reading, an index, instructions for planting a butterfly garden, and several websites to help kids become citizen scientists.  56 pages; grades 3-7.

Pros:  A fascinating look at science at work, with plenty of photos and kid-friendly ideas for making a difference.

Cons:  The introduction profiled two kids catching and tagging butterflies; it would have been interesting to read more about kids acting as citizen scientists.

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Published by DK Children

Summary:  What’s the buzz about bees?  This book seeks to answer this and quite a few more questions like “Where does honey come from?”, “What would we do without bees?”, and “What can you do to help?”.  Turns out the whole “busy as a bee” thing is real; you might appreciate that spoonful of honey more when you know it’s the lifetime’s work of 12 honeybees (a jar of honey represents 55,000 miles of flying).  Why should humans be concerned about the disappearance of bees?  One-third of our food comes from crops pollinated by animals.  Scientists are working to develop a robot bee, but it’s not quite the same, is it?  Activities at the end include making a bee hotel and planting a garden to help bees in their pollination efforts.  48 pages; grades K-5.

Pros:  Interesting information combined with lots of graphics make this an appealing choice to learn more about all kinds bees, with a focus on honeybees.

Cons:  The whole bee situation is a lot more serious than I realized.

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Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers

Summary:  From the team that brought you Pink Is for Blobfish comes this collection of animals that can seem “monstrous”.  Each two-page spread features a photo of the animal, a brief description of the animal and what makes dangerous or deadly, a sidebar with facts like diet and habitat, and another interesting fact or two.  Many of the animals have monster-sounding names like the assassin bug, the horror frog, and the tyrant leech king.  And some of them are downright creepy, like the cordyceps fungus that takes over insects’ brains, causing them to self-destruct.  The final page is the seemingly obligatory inclusion of humans with a catalog of how we are wreaking havoc on the planet.  Includes a page connecting animals to famous monsters (e.g., Dracula and the vampire bat), a page explaining how what we see as scary is really an animal’s way of protecting itself, and a glossary.  48 pages; grades 1-4.

Pros:  The gross-out factor combined with striking graphics and appealing page layouts makes this a surefire nonfiction hit.

Cons:  An introductory page would have been nice to give an overview of the book before diving into the first animal.