Customer Reviews

The Very Clumsy Click Beetle

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My 4 year old came home from preschool and talked about this book for 2 weeks! He drew click beetles over and over again, and told me how the story goes. He was one impressed 4 year old and any mom knows when their child mentions a book over and over again, it must be good!

This book is well-liked by my class of four and five year olds. The story is clear and engaging. My students especially enjoy opening to the back page to hear the beetle's CLICK!

The little click beetle repeatedly strives in the story to CLICK and flip over onto his feet, a feat shown to him by an older, wiser click beetle. He tries to show this new trick to a variety of other critters with no success. The critters encourage him to keep trying.

We used this story in class to discuss the importance of persistence and practice to learn something new. This book also sparked a discussion about being kind and respectful, as we talked about how things might have been different if the critters in the story had ridiculed the click beetle for his failure instead of encouraging him. You could challenge children to tell how the ending would have been different if the little click beetle hadn't mastered his CLICK at the right time at the end.

Definitely a classroom staple, along with most of Eric Carle's other titles.

I'm a children's librarian. I bought this book for my library. I've read it to two groups and showed it to some of the children who come to the library everyday. I thought they would like it since Carle's other book The Very Quiet Cricket is so enormously popular. Their reaction has been thumbs down. The children like the chirping sound from the cricket book, but the click sound from this beetle book doesn't impress them. The dull "click, click" really pales in comparison to the lilting cricket chirp. We've had our copy of the beetle book for almost three months, and it's only been checked out once.

I think a teacher or parent might be able to encourage a child to enjoy the click beetle book by incorporating it into a discussion about bugs. Also, a child who is fascinated with bugs might enjoy it. However, for the average child, I recommend buying The Very Quiet Cricket instead of the Beetle book. For a child who already has and loves the cricket book, I recommend buying Carle's The Very Lonely Firefly, which has fireflies that light up. My library kids like to crawl under desks to enjoy that book in the dark.

I'm a Branch Manager of a Public Library and we have found that this book is very good for the children that comes over for school visits. It is so funny to be reading them the book and they start hearing the Beetle make it's sound they start looking around the room trying to find out where it is coming from then they cant believe that it came from the book. Every year when school starts back this is the book that i read to my Kindergarden classes. I suggest that everyone should get this book and watch the look on your childs face when you read this book to them.

The valuable take-away lesson of this book is "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." My three year old loves this book. We have borrowed it again and again from the library this year. When the beetle finally succeeds at flipping over after many failures, he makes a clicking sound as he does it, which delights my son. We are big Eric Carle fans.

I like that this story encourages "trying again". When you're 2 the day can be fraught with little failures. What better role model to have than a very persistent click beetle?

In the world of children's books.....this guy is king! (and no, I'm not getting paid to say this :D) I'm such a huge fan of this talented author who has generated a plethora of extremely appealing concept books - all with eye-catching illustrations and entertaining features. This one has a clicking noise that comes at a pivotal point of the story (oh man, I hope I didn't just spoil this for any of you). How appropriate for this little click beetle who spends the entire book trying to learn to click and flip (rough life, huh? But, who am I to argue with survival mechanisms?). This book is more than just clicks though. There is a wonderful theme of perseverance running throughout this story, vivid illustrations that make you want to run your fingers over and over them, lots and lots and lots of repetition (yes, even though this can drive adults absolutely CRAZY, kids thrive on it). Also, Carle's books typically include a grammar lesson (shhhh.....don't tell the kids). Here we have so many wonderful verbs introduced by the supporting characters: a turtle who ambles, a snail who slithers, a mouse who scurries. Who else but Carle could make the story of a simple click beetle beautiful and fascinating? Do me a favor. Buy every one of his books and keep them on your bookshelves forever. Your future nature-loving child will someday thank you for it.

My two year old son LOVES this book. He likes to read along and make the CLICK sound by himself on each page. Towards the end when the book makes the clicking sound he gets all excited. He wants to read this book everyday. Even if he's crying I'll pull out this book and he'll run and sit down next to me to read it. We're big fans of Eric Carle and have 5 of his other books with two more on the way! The message in this book is wonderful. The other animals offer encouragement, the wise old click beetle offers guidance, and the very clumsy click beetle never gives up. Great book!

This book was very entertaining. This book also went over how to try again at something we may not be good at. My child got the concept of this from this book!
Very colorful pages and great sound effects for the clicking sound version at the end of the book!

It's a very mellow story about the plight of this click beetle. It's great for bedtime. The story has a bit more fluidity than a typical Carle book, which is why I liked it. The click beetle talks to different bugs/animals, which are different from the typical farm animal book that are a dime a dozen. It's a great book for toddlers.