Young Naturalist's Pop-Up Handbook: Beetles - Book #1 (Young Naturalist's Handbook)

You'll never look at beetles the same way again. When masterful paper engineer Robert Sabuda works his pop-up magic, you're sure to find beauty and wonder in the thorniest of creatures. About 350,000 kinds of beetles creep across the surface of our world, but don't worry, Sabuda and cocreator Matthew Reinhart only include a few here, including dung scarabs (move the pages to "roll" the dung!) and the giant horned Hercules beetle of Central and South America. The colorful, metallic exoskeletons explode to life with every well-designed page, causing even the most beetle-phobic to marvel at their intricate anatomy. Funny, accessible sidebars ("Don't talk with your mandibles full") are sure to engage young naturalists in search of factoids about the eclectic, leggy group Coleoptera. To top it all off, each pop-up book comes with a paper frame with a plastic-encased, paper-engineered specimen of Phalacrognathus muelleri, the Australian stag beetle. (Beetles were not harmed in the making of this book.) A wonderful gift for the young naturalist on your list! (The Young Naturalist's Pop-Up Handbook of Butterflies is also quite fetching.) (Ages 6 to 10) --Karin Snelson