Worms

Like most other Crabtree series, the “What Lives in the Dirt?” books utilize two-page chapters, brief text, bolded words that are defined in a closing glossary and an index. Where these books depart from other Crabtree books is in the medium used for illustrating the text. Readers have come to expect the pages of Crabtree books to be brimming with coloured photos; however, the four “What Lives in the Dirt?” titles employ collage illustrations provided by Hannah Tolson.

Worms is a fun and informative read full of hard facts and entertaining trivia. A Tolson illustration allows Williams to identify the parts of a worm’s body, another, the stages of a worm’s growth from cocoon to adult, and yet another, how to differentiate between young and adult worms. Included among the trivia is the fact that “the longest worm is the African giant earthworm. It is 21 feet (6.7 m) long.” Now, that’s fascinating information, but, for the reader to visualize this worm, Williams really needed to include the detail of the worm’s girth. Shoelace thin or python wide? Williams’ brief text also touches on worms’ activities, their food, and their enemies. Williams concludes her main text by noting a number of the ways in which worms’ normal activities are incidentally useful to humans. In addition to worms’ roles in composting,

They get rid of dead leaves and animals on the ground.

Their poop makes soil full of goodness so that plants grow tall and strong.

Following the book’s main text, readers are invited to “Make a wormery” so they can “watch worms at work.” Williams provides a list of what readers will need in order to build a wormery as well as step-by-step instructions on how to locate worms, construct the wormery, and provide the worms with “food”. She tells readers, “After a couple of weeks, look at the jar. You should notice the vegetable peelings and leaves have nearly disappeared. Then put the worms back outside where you found them.”

Other end matter includes a page of “More wonderful facts about worms”, a glossary and an index.

Tolson’s cartoon-like collages definitely give the books in the “What Lives in the Dirt?” series a more informal, almost storybook feel, one that will attract the younger end of the series’ audience range. In our increasingly concrete-covered world, worms are often less visible to children (with the post-rainstorm exception when worm cadavers often seem to be everywhere), but perhaps the content of Worms will cause youngsters to dig more deeply into these invertebrates.