National Children's Authors and Illustrators Week - Bugs Rule!

Here at Good News Pest Solutions, we talk a lot about how to keep bugs out of your home. After all, it’s one of our primary missions and has been for more than 30 years. But one of our other goals is to educate people. So this week, we’d like to talk about the bugs you might want to keep in your homes. Well, definitely if you have children or grandchildren around a lot!

Every year, the first week of February is set aside by libraries, schools, and children’s shelters. They use the time to celebrate and share the work of hundreds of writers and illustrators who create, and have created, books for kids under 18 years old!

Eating For Success

Eric Carle, the creator of the hugely popular The Very Hungry Caterpillar, uses insects and nature as the inspiration to write and hand-paint his stories. He hopes the tales of counting, days of the week and life stages, all told by the apparently starving butterfly larvae, will help kids feel more at home at school. The book was even endorsed by the Royal Entomological Society!

In addition to the caterpillar, Carle also created The Very Lonely Firefly, The Mixed-Up Chameleon, The Grouchy Ladybug, The Honeybee and the Robber, The Very Busy Spider, The Very Quiet Cricket, and The Very Clumsy Click Beetle. And those are just his bug books!

A Bug For All Seasons

A cockroach might not be the first choice most folks would make for a friend, but it works well for Archy and Mehitabel, a pair of comic strip characters that have remained popular for more than 100 years! Archy is a roach but also a free verse poet – and his poems are all lower case, since he can’t hit two typewriter keys simultaneously. His best friend Mehitabel is an alley cat who lives outside the newspaper office where Archy composes his masterworks.

Despite the fact that the strips were conceived as social commentary and satire, they are still very popular in book form today, although their pal Pete the Pup (NOT from the Little Rascals) sometimes gets more attention as he types about his uncomplicated life as a Boston Terrier.

A Bug’s Life

David Kirk’s series of Little Miss Spider tales became so popular that they transformed the books and characters into a TV show & several kid-friendly Apple mobile apps! The Miss Spider books often spark discussions about adoption. The title character was adopted by a beetle and she goes on to adopt three other insects of different species. But the message is even deeper – that Love is what makes a family.

That’s a message we can all get behind.

Whether your kids are into one of the book series we just shared, Harry Potter, The Berenstain Bears, Katniss Everdeen, or The Cat in the Hat, this is their week! Support education and literacy by connecting with your child’s school or the local library and see what programs they have for this special time. For more details and assistance planning or connecting with programs, check out their website!

And for the safest, most effective pest control solutions on the Gulf Coast of Florida, to keep the bugs out of your home, from Parrish to North Port, stop by our website or give us a call to schedule an appointment.