Ick! is the National Geographic Kids equivalent to bad words in another language. “Did you know that the Dung Beetle can push something that weighs 50 times more than itself”, our 10 year-old said as he came into my office. After he finished this tidbit of trivia he showed me a photo of the little creature doing just that. In my mind’s eye I saw the Dung Beetle from Larva, except I never knew that it was a Dung Beetle. I always thought of it as that smart beetle that pushes balls of poop around, much to the chagrin of the two larvas that always fought. Ick!, the book from National Geographic Kids had been in our house for less than an hour and our oldest son was already enthusiastically reading it and sharing things with us.
Ick!, Delightfully Disgusting Animal Dinners, Dwellings, and Defenses by Melissa Stewart is the kind of full color book that elementary and middle school audiences have come to love and embrace from National Geographic Kids. The photographs in the book are disturbingly close up, impossibly detailed and make adults question or admire the patience of any professional who would spend hours in a field trying to catch a photograph of a Northern Fulmar. The Northern Fulmar is a close relative to the Xenomorph in Alien, except instead of bleeding acid, it spits out defensive bile that sticks to predator’s wings, which effectively grounds the bird who chose poorly in their search for a bite to eat.
Ack, there I go learning something again. Is your child learning a foreign language? If so, some of the first words that they’ll learn might be the bad ones that will never assist them in a different country unless they want to insult someone. As a testament to that, I can travel through Scandinavia and mutter a handful of braggadocios statements or curt insults, but wouldn’t be able to ask what the weather is tomorrow.
Ick! is somewhat like that, except it’s loaded with facts that kids will want to learn, share and impress or disgust their friends. Parents will enjoy this because these facts might inspire those kids to do any number of things that could ultimately lead to a positive outcome.
At the very worst, it’ll make kids want to read. In your mind you might be a bit disappointed that they’re reading about a nest made of bird spittle and not Moby Dick or Charlotte’s Web. However, they are reading and getting them to read can be incredibly challenging for some children. If our eight year-old said that he only wanted to read about the fact that a young Komodo Dragon rolls in its poop to dissuade predators from eating him, we’d chalk it up to him being 8. However, we’d secretly celebrate the fact that he wants to read. Note: it would be a secret celebration because children inherently distrust and don’t want to do anything that parents want them to accomplish.
Other possible, not so bad outcomes from your child being obsessed with reading Ick!, could be that they want to study animals. They might want to become a veterinarian to help the more pedestrian creatures in our lives. They might be captivated by the photographs and want to pursue that as a hobby or career. There are umpteen positive possible outcomes from having your kids read this book-and Ick! is one that they’ll want to read. Other kids might realize that you can research and write a book about the truly disgusting things in the animal kingdom-and this could be a job?! It can be, but Ick! Is a book that was 23 years in the making, so pack your patience, be persistent and continue asking questions.
Ick! Delightfully Disgusting Animal Dinners, Dwellings and Defenses features 45 animals and their disgusting habits. It’s written by Melissa Stewart.
There are affiliate links in this post, because, ick.
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