Insects Find Way to Local Library

Your kids are going to love the way Allison Mia Starcher talks. If you take them to the Children’s Room of North Hollywood Regional Library this Saturday morning, you’ll hear her say things like, “Bugs are little teeny dinosaurs you can find in your backyard that haven’t gone extinct. They do the same things that dinosaurs and their relatives did--hunt and fly.”

This imaginative approach is what makes her recent, delightfully illustrated little book, “Good Bugs for Your Garden” so popular with kids, whether they are interested in its main topic, pesticide-free gardening, or not.

The author’s approach has prompted many parents to buy the book for their children, even though kids weren’t her initial target audience. To adult gardeners, she preaches the customary friendly-bugs-instead-of-chemicals message, with catchy slogans such as: “Assassin bugs in your lettuce patch? Rejoice!”

Starcher, who lives in Los Angeles and travels widely for presentations to children’s groups, makes a point of allaying some parents’ fears about kids and bugs.

“Lucky for us, these guys [bugs] are small and the things they like [to eat] are even smaller than they are,” she says.

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Brigitta Lopez, the children’s librarian at the North Hollywood Regional Branch where Starcher will appear, plans to have on hand a special selection of books on bugs for kids to read or check out: “Bugwise” by Pamela Hickman (Addison-Wesley $9.95); “Jack’s Garden” by Henry Cole (Greenwillow Books $15); “I Can Draw Bugs” by Yuri Salzman (Walter Foster Publishing $15); “Pet Bugs” by Sally Kneidel (Wiley $10.95); and “Squirmy Wormy Composters” by Bobbie Kalman and Janine Schaub (Crabtree Publishing $15.95).

These, and books on other topics of interest to children, also will be the attraction next week when Lopez launches a series of events called “Preschool Story Time.” Beginning next Wednesday, and running every other Wednesday from 11-11:30 a.m., she’ll read stories for kids 3 to 5 years old in the children’s room of her branch.

But, not to be outperformed this Saturday, Starcher will arrive with a live supporting cast of newly hatched praying mantises, lady bugs and green lacewings. These will be collected from her own backyard, her “private zoo,” as she calls it.

“Anybody’s yard . . . has interesting new things to see every morning,” she says. “When you step too far back from it, you lose it all. When you step close into it, you gain.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

DETAILS

* WHAT: “A Family Program for Gardeners of All Ages” with Allison Mia Starcher.

* WHERE: Children’s Room of the North Hollywood Regional Library, 5211 Tujunga Ave.

* WHEN: 11 a.m. Saturday.

* HOW MUCH: Free.

* CALL: (818) 766-7185.

* FYI: Also, the North Hollywood Regional Library has a “Preschool Story Time” for 3- to 5-year-olds. Runs Wednesday, and April 17, May 1, 15 and 29 at 11 a.m.