A passion for everything insect
A little girl becomes entranced with bugs and finds her bliss, Bernie Goedhart writes.
The Bug Girl (a true story)
Sophia Spencer with Margaret Mcnamara Illustrated by Kerascoet Tundra Books
When I finished my first reading of The Bug Girl, I sat at my desk with the book clutched to my chest, knowing it was a winner. And that was BEFORE I read the author bio on the back flap and realized Sophia Spencer is a schoolgirl, and that — as the title states — this book tells a true story based on her youthful passion for bugs, and an experience with bullying in Grade 1.
Sophia is in Grade 5 now (in Sarnia, Ont., the publisher’s bumf tells me), and as the book makes clear, she has come a long way since classmates teased her for her love of bugs — or, to put it more accurately (as spelled out in six fact-filled pages after the story), her love of insects. “Bug” is a word most people use, she explains, but scientists use the word “arthropod.” There are two major types of arthropods: arachnids (which include spiders) and insects (which include bees, flies, crickets and so on). “Insects are the arthropods I like best,” Sophia says.
But let’s go back to the story, and the reason this book affected me so strongly — the first in 2020 to end up clutched to my chest. U.S. publisher Random House deserves much of the credit for recognizing a heartwarming story in the first place, pitched by co-writer Margaret Mcnamara, and for turning the resulting text over to a husband-and-wife team of illustrators already renowned for their lovely wordless picture book I Walk With Vanessa. (Tundra Books is a Penguin Random House Canada imprint.) Both Mcnamara and Kerascoet do Sophia proud, telling her story in a childlike voice and depicting the author’s innocence and enthusiasm for bugs in lyrical, colourful images.
“The first time I made friends with a bug, I was two and a half years old,” the story begins.
“My mom took me to a butterfly conservatory, which is like a zoo for butterflies. As soon as we got there, a butterfly perched on my shoulder.” Barely a paragraph in, and I was hooked. Reading how that butterfly refused to leave Sophia as she made her rounds of the conservatory — and how a guard had to gently remove it from her person before she and her mother could leave — made a strong impression on me. The detailed watercolour illustrations only confirmed that this was a special little girl.
Throughout kindergarten, Sophia immersed herself in bug facts, bug collections and bug-based room decor, collecting a lively group of like-minded friends in the process. But by the time she got to Grade 1, she encountered some classmates who turned up their noses at bugs and at Sophia’s passion, labelling her “weird” and “strange.” One of the most poignant images is a heartbreaking page where Sophia discovers that one of the kids has stomped to death a grasshopper that had been riding on her shoulder.
That night, at home, Sophia “cried and cried.” Her mother tells her the kids are wrong. Nevertheless, Sophia never brings a bug to school again. Kids kept teasing her, though, so she “took a break from bugs,” packing up much of the contents of her bedroom in another poignant twopage spread. Her mother, wisely, emailed a group of entomologists “asking for one of them to be my ‘bug pal.’” Scientist Morgan Jackson responded, and asked if he could let other scientists know about Sophia. The heartwarming results illustrate the finer side of social media, and the joys of finding a sense of community.
“School got a lot easier after that,” Sophia tells us, “because I didn’t feel so alone. And nowadays, I like even more things: gymnastics, time-travel books, swimming and technology.”
But when someone asked her to describe herself in three words, she wasn’t at a loss for words. “The Bug Girl,” she said, “because I’m happiest when it’s just me, / a few green leaves, / some drops of water, / and a bug to keep me company.”