Amazon.com Review
When second grader Gregory Sampson wakes up one morning to discover that he has become a giant beetle, his ensuing day is distinctly
Kafka-esque, yet in a totally childlike way. For one blighted day, young hard-shelled Gregory faces an extreme version of the common outrage of the 6- to 8-year-old whose parents have ceased watching and admiring his every toddling move: No one notices him one bit. Not when his slippery beetle self falls down the stairs and he lies there wriggling all six legs in the air. Not when he waves a claw through the air at the breakfast table. Not even when he bellows across the kitchen, "Look at me. I'm a giant beetle."
Lawrence David's deft and buoyant comprehension of family life enables him to relate this tale of childhood invisibility with both pathos and humor. To Gregory's pronouncement, the father replies: "And I'm a hippo." "You've always been our little bug-a-boo," says the mom, her eyes on the morning headlines. His sister merely takes his bacon, murmuring, "Do bugs like bacon?" Gregory's changes get noticed, finally, by his best friend Michael.
Despite the frustrating oblivion of his family, the beetle boy's adaptive abilities keep the story brave and easygoing. Even when Gregory's at the height of his confusion, we see him cutting extra armholes in his shirt for his two new arms ("Or were they legs?"), whopping a soccer ball with his antenna to make a score, and generously offering to use his extra arms to carry his clueless sister's backpack. In equal measure, Delphine Durand's busy, vivacious illustrations convey that no matter the depth of a problem, life itself doesn't lose all its color.
In this wonderfully told story, the parents don't remain distracted forever, and the child--forgiving of their trespasses--accepts, and is healed by, their tardy recognition of the huge changes they didn't see. It's a moving, beautifully rendered moment--and most certainly powerful enough to turn a six-legged bug back into a little boy. (Ages 6 and older) --Jean Lenihan
From Publishers Weekly
In this tongue-in-cheek story inspired by Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," a second grader copes with being a bug for a day. Durand (The Snoops) provides gouaches of a boy-size but not-too-gross brown bug clad in a plaid shirt, surrounded by puppetlike humans with elongated noses and normal kids' toys. David (The Good Little Girl) sets a breezy tone by mimicking Kafka's memorable opening line: "Gregory Sampson woke one morning to discover that he had become a giant beetle." Baffled by his odd predicament, Gregory cuts extra armholes in his shirt and finds that his extra legs help him count to six in math class. In his hurry to eat breakfast and catch the school bus, the ovoid fellow tumbles down the stairs and lands on his carapace; "after a few minutes of wriggling, he was able to grab hold of the banister and flip himself over." Yet readers may find it troubling that no one, with the exception of his best friend, notices his inexplicable transformation. The author renders the boy invisible to adults and fellow students and derives most of his humor from deadpan allusions to the classic story, which may get a chuckle from Kafka fans but will be unfamiliar to beginning readers. Durand strikes a delicate balance between real and surreal elements in his imaginative artwork, but the tale ends flatly, with a banal plea for good parenting: poor Gregory just needs loving attention, and the only way he can get it is by scuttling across the ceiling. Ages 6-up.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
