SuitabookI, fly
Bridget Heos
- Reading
- Read the main pages aloud, pause at the charts and chalkboard notes, and invite the child to explain the life cycle in their own words. Notice how the visiting fly takes a bow, with the onlooking butterfly clapping at the end.
- Themes
- Making an unpopular animal interesting: A charismatic housefly argues that flies deserve attention, contrasting them with butterflies and highlighting their abilities and the worthy work of maggots. The book clearly presents the fly’s case enthusiastically, while embedding factual information about biology and maggots.
- Learning through disgust and humour: The book explains feeding and digestive details, including faeces, rubbish, rotting fruit and maggots’ work, through jokes and a question-and-answer exchange. The subject matter is treated as deliberately funny and intriguing rather than hidden, but the humour’s effect on each reader may differ.
- Worth knowing
- Be aware that the humour dwells on flies eating faeces, rubbish and rotting fruit, and includes a question about vomiting on food; this is presented as comic natural history.