Bug Boys looked interesting from the cover. Perhaps a bit too whimsical for my illustration tastes, but I was willing to overlook it to find a book with science peppered throughout it. (Or I was assuming it would give facts and fiction). Also, how does one not love a good book about friends?
What could have been a modern Frog and Toad or the new Elephant and Piggie, turned into one huge mess.
The spiritual aspects and the growth from there that the characters should have taken I could have handled. I was enjoying how one character “prayed” at the chrysalis. It was spiritual, not Religious. They even said it was a form of mediation. (And while that word and I have a love/hate relationship, it was an appropriate way of talking about the subject). But the writing is stiff; the characters uninteresting and finally the “drug induced mind trip” at the near the end was downright creepy and well over the top. The modern characters attitude (such as boys cry) gets lost with utter nonsense storylines.
The artwork is awkward and flat as well. Laura Knetzger might be a lovely person, but there was nothing lovely about their text or art. The characters are abstract (some bees looked like a squishy tooth; the termite had an anteater tongue for a nose). Where was the science? Occasionally you might see that a creature “eats honey” or the spider makes a pun along the lines of “nice to eat/meet you” or “you’re a delicious snack” or the fact one character wants to take the shiny objects they find while exploring a cave, but the other tells them it might be part of a world they cannot see/understand. It is not until the end you learn about the type of beetles the two characters are and facts about them. Up to that point, you have just a fantasy story.
The one part I did like (though I have not tried yet) is there is a small activity section at the end where you can learn how to draw Stag-B and Rhino-B. (Publishing February 2020).