Why do fireflies glow? How do beetles clean up the planet? Can a tarantula really be someone's best friend? Yuval Zommer's Big Book of Bugs was the first in his beloved Big Book series, and it remains one of the best — a richly illustrated celebration of the planet's most overlooked creatures, from stick insects and dung beetles to bombardier beetles and giant water bugs. The facts are genuinely astonishing — there are more insects on Earth than any other kind of animal, and without them the whole ecosystem would collapse. I enjoy this series just as much as my kids do, and this is where I'd tell anyone to start.