The Louse

Adиle Ashby, a library consultant, is the former editor of Canadian Materials for Schools and Libraries.

This latest addition to the Fauna in Color series (Cine-faune in French)
uses amusing text and illustrations to provide young children with an
introduction to various animals. Here the subject is the life cycle of
lice, told in rhyming couplets—“Dog lice live on dogs, with a cat
they don’t bother / And human lice room on humans, no
other”—accompanied by framed pictures that show anthropomorphized
lice knitting, reading, and even playing dice. This attempt to humanize
these revolting creatures is misguided—do we really want to develop
warm, fuzzing feelings about lice?—and while the translation preserves
the flavor of the original, both raise the question of whether there
really is an audience for this book in either language.