Can’t get enough of the 17 year Cicadas?

These books and films should scratch your itch for all things creepy crawly…

And check out Bug Picture Books for Preschoolers, and our Cicada Spotlight for Elementary Schoolers.

 

Extinction
by Mark Alpert

When a Chinese assassin shows up at Jim Pierce’s lab looking for his daughter, he knows she’s uncovered some serious secrets: a malevolent, artificial life form (cyborg insects!) created by military scientists that threatens to destroy humanity.

 

 

The Hellstrom Chronicle (Documentary)
DVD [2012]

Professor Hellstrom, a famous entomologist, is so shaken by the savagery and ferocity of the predatory insect world that he films the following ‘documentary’ to warn mankind of its danger. Featuring stunning microphotography of a variety of insects and plants that include ultra close-ups of wars between ant colonies and a gigantic praying mantis practicing cannibalism.

 

Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise
by David Rothenberg

Rothenberg explores the relationship between human and animal music, including insect influences in classical and modern music. In doing so, he plays his saxophone with crickets and other insects, and confers with researchers and scientists nationwide.

 

 

Starship Troopers
by Robert Heinlein

With Earth embroiled in a vast interplanetary war with the “Bugs,” a young recruit in the Federal Reserves relates his experiences training in boot camp and as a junior officer in the Terran Mobile Infantry. Originally published in 1959.

 

 

 

Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World
by Marlene Zuk

Insects are capable of incredibly complex behavior, even with brains often the size of a poppy seed. How do they accomplish feats that look like human activity–personality, language, childcare–with completely different pathways from our own? Sex on Six Legs is a startling and exciting book that provides answers to these questions and many more.

 

 

The Metamorphosis
adapted from the Franz Kafka story by Peter Kuper

What’s even more creepy than the original Metamorphosis? A Graphic novel version of  the story of a young man who faces disgrace and alienation after waking up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant beetle-like insect. Yuck.

 

 

A Bug’s Life
DVD [2003]

The brave story of an innovative ant named Flik who hires warrior bugs to defend his colony from a horde of freeloading grasshoppers.

 

 

Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father’s Search for the Wild
by Tom Montgomery Fate

“Thoreau applied” to the 21st century — a suburban father’s honest exploration of how to live a more deliberate and attentive life within a high-tech, material culture. Plus bugs.