Review: Alien Invaders

Alien Invaders by Lynn Huggins-Cooper. Illustrated by Bonnie Leick. Raven Tree Press, 2010 (978-1-934960-83-7) $16.95

(Also available in an English/Spanish bilingual edition.)


Think that aliens are little green men? Wrong! In fact, aliens are already here, setting up camp in our gardens, spinning dangerous traps, watching us with their camera-lens eyes. There are many more of them than us, so even though his mom says "they are just bugs," the young narrator of this book decides, "I am making friends with them, just in case."

I was tickled by this imaginative view of insects, which finds mystery in the most seemingly ordinary things. The narrator's awe-filled combination of fear and fascination is reflected in the illustrations, which have an appropriately unearthly glow and use size and shape distortions to emphasize the creepy "alien-ness" of the bugs. The last page is especially funny, as the boy tries to show his friendliness by dressing up with bug-eyed googles, wings, a colander hat for feelers and flowers sticking out of his clothes.

© 2010 Wendy E. Betts

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