3-D Bees and Micro Fleas

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“Cute as a bug’s ear” is an expression that might disappear from
your vocabulary if you take the 3-D tour of various crawly critters
profiled in these two Eye to Eye Books. “Eye to Eye” is mostly a
euphemism in this series. Yes, you do look a few bugs in their beady
compound eyes, but the majority of the photos take you boldly where no
insect photographer has gone before. For example, there are photos of
both ends of a spider: in one, the arachnid’s fangs seem poised to
take a bite out of the viewer; in the other, appropriately labeled
“Spider Butt,” readers get a 3-D view of where Charlotte’s Web
comes from.

But what these photos lack in cuteness, they make up for in great
visual material and fascinating scientific text. Each book comes with 24
full-color removable cards and a collapsable stereographic viewer. When
a card is inserted into the viewer, the result is a high-quality,
full-color 3-D photo taken by an electron microscope. The photographs
refer back to intriguing commentary, like “While there are more than
2,000 species of flies, they never interbreed. When a fly wants to mate,
he begins beating his wings at a certain speed. If the female beats her
wings at the same speed, he knows she is the same species.”

3-D Bees and Micro Fleas profiles various insects including the ant,
aphid, flea, beetle, ladybug larva, fly, midge, damselfly, lacewing
butterfly, moth, bee, and wasp. 3-D Lungs and Micro Tongues explores the
world of the electron microscope with subjects like salt, plant stems,
pollen, fish gills, snail tongues, lice, spiders, and even slimy human
teeth. Both books are guaranteed to bewitch any junior science buff. The
only real drawback to this series is that once the cards and stereoscope
are separated from the book, the various components tend to become
scattered because the one “pocket” on the inside back cover is too
tight to comfortably hold all the loose pieces. Highly recommended.