Tiny Monsters: The Strange Creatures That Live on Us, in Us, and Around Us

This sophisticated illustrated guide to the “world of tiny, fantastic creatures that we seldom notice” provides zoomed-in views (each illustration notes the magnification) of bristly textures, jointed legs, intimidating pinchers, and eyes alongside “actual size” illustrations and brief text snippets that note remarkable facts. The pages feature creatures familiar (deer ticks, head lice, cat fleas) and more esoteric (armored snout mites, dragon springtails), rendered in Jenkins’s cut-and-torn paper collage style and presented crisply against empty backgrounds. While the creatures’ brilliant colors “aren’t always realistic” (a footnote explains that the images are based on black-and-white electron microscope images), their strange, surreal, and sometimes alarming forms mesmerize. The text provides just enough substance to spark readers’ fascination with these “tiny monsters” that live alongside humans. Includes a closing infographic with “More Tiny Monster Facts.” Ages 6–9. (Nov.)