A Pillbug Story

Conway’s wryly whimsical latest (after The Lab) peers into the weeds of a bug’s life. Millie, a sweet-faced pill bug, lives in a leafy city with friends, including an ant who’s eager to show off her colony’s work, a spider with a brood of children clinging to her thorax, and a ladybug who can’t stop chowing down on aphids. She attends a campout, drinks cocktails by the beach, gets a check-up (“It looks like you have a copper deficiency. Have you been eating your stool?”), and dates a crayfish she met online. The picture-book art complements these sunny vignettes. But a thread of dark humor emerges in scenes depicting the brutality of Millie’s milieu: baby ladybugs cannibalize each other, spiders have tea with an insect one of them is about to devour, and Millie eyes the courtships of her praying mantis neighbor with trepidation. Millie, a crustacean in a city of insects and arachnids, navigates life as a minority (“Oh! You’re not an entomophage,” a tea party host says when Millie is unable to eat any of the insects served) and has a tense visit with her family back home. At first glance this charmer feels like a simple cozy fantasy, but it rewards a deeper look. Conway does for bugs what Tuca & Bertie did for birds. (June)