Diary of a Fly

Young listeners will find themselves greatly entertained by this playfully illustrated guide to the life of a little fly. Harry Bliss, illustrator of this popular "diary" series, entertains with both his voice and his drawings. Bliss captures listeners with his falsetto fly-girl voice, and he has fun to the very last words he reads from the back cover of the book's illustrated captions. Transforming with ease into the wise voice of spider's grandfather or that of the little fly's Aunt Rita, Bliss shows he's a talented performer with a great sense of pace, tone, and comic timing. The audio offers engaging bits of information about flies in addition to a modest story line in which fly-girl learns that the world needs ALL kinds of heroes. J.C.G. Winner of AudioFIle Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Starred review from July 16, 2007
Cronin and Bliss follow up their bestselling Diary of a Worm
and Diary of a Spider
with a heroine so delightful it would be criminal to swat her. Fly, a purple girl with multifaceted green eyes, chronicles her childhood, from anxieties about the first day of school (“June 7: What if I’m the only one who eats regurgitated food?... June 8: Everyone eats regurgitated food!”) to family issues (“July 23: I visited my aunt Rita today. She’s been trapped on the wrong side of a screen for a week”). Tips on flying, such as “Leap backward when taking off,” combine with grade-school concerns and problems of discipline. Fly’s babysitter, a ladybug, can’t manage Fly and her 327 brothers and sisters (“Mom says we were a lot easier to watch before we grew heads”), so she brings a hungry green frog and sits back to read Teen Bugs
magazine. Because flies “beat their wings 200 times per second,” “can see in all directions at once” and have amazing aerial powers, Fly fantasizes about being a superhero, though her friend Spider notes, “Superheroes bend steel with their bare hands. You eat horse manure with your feet.” Bemused readers may be more inclined to agree with Worm, however, who reassures Fly that “the world needs all kinds of heroes.” Cronin’s spot-on humor and Bliss’s uproarious ink-and-watercolor panels make Fly—and this third outing in the series—both irresistible and undeniably super. Ages 4-8.

Abigail Breslin (of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE fame) reads this enjoyable follow-up to the bestselling diaries of a worm and a spider, who make appearances in this book as well. Breslin's expressive, youthful voice is perfectly suited to that of "fly girl," and she handles the gently humorous yet informative story line well. We learn a fly's average flight speed (4.5 mph) and how fast they beat their wings (200 times per second--"No wonder I keep falling asleep in math"). This fun production is enhanced by musical interludes that include jazzy piano phrases to the occasional doo-wop beat. It ends with an interesting interview with illustrator Harry Bliss, who offers his thoughts on illustrating this popular picture-book series. J.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine