The Gentleman Bug

Thoughtful, scholarly Gentleman Bug and his colleagues inhabit the Garden, an Edwardian town, and it's the contrast between the multilegged creatures and their period costumes that supplies the book's quiet humor. (The Garden is laid out on a map on the endpapers, labeled with locations like Bugadilly Circus and Pollen Hill.) The Gentleman Bug, a teacher of juvenile bugs, falls for Lady Bug; in a sort of anti-Cinderella scene, he appears at a ball in a dapper suit and top hat to impress her. “The rest of the evening didn't go quite as planned,” Hector (The Little Matador ) writes as the bug collides with a waiter. Lady Bug is a librarian, it turns out, and their mutual love of reading draws them together in the end. The fact that the romance unfolds in public reduces the mush factor, and even smaller children will sympathize: “Safe at home, he tried to forget about the Lady Bug, but it was a very hard thing to do.” The combination of an elaborately imagined community and a pared-down plot and text makes this a fine choice for the very young. Ages 2–5. (Apr.)