Mosquito Bite by Alexandra Siy & Dennis Kunkel. Charlesbridge, 2005. 32pp. ISBN 1-57091-591-1.

SB&F review:

Mosquito Bite is attractive in every way. The color illustrations and black-and-white photographs are creatively and dramatically displayed. Except for a few statements about which I have a minor quibble, the text is technically correct. The story line is cute and one to which many children will be able to relate. Second-grade readers should have no problem with the vocabulary, except possibly some of the less familiar technical terms, which appear as the life history of the mosquito progresses through several stages from egg to adult. The setting is rural, so urban readers may look with some wonder on the swing set surrounded by big trees. Malaria and West Nile viral encephalitis are given as two examples of diseases for which mosquitoes are a vector. There is good advice about how to avoid being bitten and about how to discourage the production of mosquitoes in one’s own backyard. The book has a good index and a list of resources, dealing mostly with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), something of the wonders of which are displayed in the magnificent photomicrographs. Perhaps the authors did not emphasize clearly enough, however, that mosquitoes are really not colored red, green, and brown. Brown, black, and white are the only hues that most mosquitoes can sport, although some (not Culex pipiens, the heroine of this book) are wonderfully iridescent. Technical terms are simply defined in the glossary, but that brings up the quibbles. The pupal state is described as “inactive,” and that is often true, but mosquito pupae are very definitely active. The term “ocellus is defined, but it applies neither to mosquito larvae nor to the larvae of any holometabolous insects, which have only stemmata (sing.: stemma) if they have any photosensitive structures at all. But mosquito larvae are the exception to the rule: Their eyes, incorrectly labeled “ocellus” on page 11 of this book, are more like the ommatidia of which the compound eyes of the imago are composed. Still, looking at this sturdily constructed book as a whole, these are minor matters that detract only slightly from this otherwise excellent story of the interplay between a hungry mosquito and a little boy.

About the author:

Alexandra Siy is the author of more than a dozen books for children. Footprints on the Moon, her first book published by Charlesbridge, received a 2001 Parents' Choice Silver Honor Award. Alexandra lives with her husband and four children on a tree farm near Clarksville, New York, where she writes, snaps photos, and swats mosquitos.
www.alexandrasiy.com

About the illustrator:

The award-winning micrographs of Dennis Kunkel, Ph.D., are the subject of MicroAliens: Dazzling Journeys with an Electron Microscope and Hidden Worlds: Looking Through a Scientist's Microscope. Dennis lives in Kailua, Hawaii, with his wife, Nancy Eckmann. When hiking in Hawaiian rain forest, Dennis makes sure to bring insect repellent--unless he's looking for a mosquito specimen!
www.denniskunkel.com

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