Bug love

FW goes back and forth between different science interests, and now and again he returns to his insect fascination, which began when he was three. Last year, when FW just had to know the names of every type of beetle he found in the yard, we bought him Arthur V. Evans's Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America, which is an incredibly complete guidebook intended for adults. Our recent discovery, which is more age-appropriate yet still detailed and amazing, is the Simon & Schuster Children's Guide to Insects and Spiders. Due to its manageable amount of text and big, gorgeous pictures, we can even read this one to FW at bedtime. Then he can drift off to sleep thinking of the beautiful Oleander sphinx moth, or of a bot fly laying eggs in a deer's nostril.

Myriacantherpestes

Beyond dinosaurs

FW is vaguely interested in fossils and prehistoric stuff, but he's not really into dinosaurs (at least not yet). His passion for deep sea creatures has led to a passing interest in sharks, but what he really wanted to know about was prehistoric sharks. Sigh. How in the world was I going to find a book specifically about prehistoric sharks?

Quite easily, as it turned out, thanks to an incredibly talented guy called Timothy J. Bradley. He has written and illustrated an Aspergerific book called Paleo Sharks that offers enough information to be science-y (and luckily for me, he includes phonetic spellings of the sharks' Latin names) yet is decidedly a kids book, with captivating full-color illustrations and a manageable amount of text. This is always the trick for us: science books meant for adults are interesting to FW, but these are not easy for us to, say, read to him at bedtime. Science books meant for kids are often far too basic and nowhere near accurate and specific enough for FW. Timothy J. Bradley's books--he has another one called Paleo Bugs--are perfect for the elementary school Aspergian.