Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad

January 3, 2011
It's the "first official Bug Squad playdate," and Lulu wants everything to go as planned. At the appointed Bug Squad base, the squad members (with basset hound Bingo in tow) demonstrate their powers: Dragonfly Girl can breathe fire (twirling a boa), Bumblebee Boy is as "fast as lightning," Butterfly Girl has smarts, and Ladybug Girl can fly, is super-strong, saves ants, and does cartwheels. But there's tension in the group when Ladybug Girl's exuberance comes across as bossiness. Soman and Davis sensitively convey the joys of creative play and the delicacies of children's social dynamics. Ages 3–5.

March 1, 2011

PreS-Gr 1-Lulu, aka Ladybug Girl, has a play date with her friends who arrive costumed as their own alter egos. Ladybug Girl, Bumblebee Boy, Dragonfly Girl, and Butterfly Girl have an idyllic mini-adventure in Lulu's yard, and everything is going just the way she imagined it would...until it doesn't. The friends don't paint rocks the way she had planned, and then there are hurt feelings over a candle blown out before a wish is made. Piaget might take issue with Lulu's almost immediate insight into the problem she herself has caused, but young readers will ignore the omniscient narrator and just be glad for the resolution-a relit candle blown out (in a conciliatory gesture) by Ladybug and Butterfly. Soman and Davis's simple story speaks directly to that time in childhood when imagination and reality are aligned. Ladybug Girl is given free rein to explore and create, inspiring young readers to emulate her or identify with her. The adorable suburban superheroes in makeshift costumes wander with Bingo, an expressive beagle, through well-tended lawns and woods in a gentle story that many children will enjoy.-Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.