DIARY OF A FLY

Worm and Spider have had their say, now it’s time for Fly to take center stage. She frets in dated entries about going to school (“What if I’m the only one who eats regurgitated food?”), recording flying and other lessons, cutting up with her 327 brothers and sisters and especially yearning to be a superhero—despite her friend Spider’s scorn: “Superheroes bend steel with their bare hands. You eat horse manure with your feet.” Bliss contributes another set of cartoons that place small creatures with occasional identifying items of clothing (Fly’s is a hair bow) in a big and not always entirely safe world. It’s still a winning formula, and readers will come away, as from the two previous outings, with sore stomachs (from laughing) and surprising amounts of painlessly delivered natural history—plus Worm’s sage and comforting closing observation that “the world needs all kinds of heroes.” (Picture book. 6-8)