#4- Diary of a Fly

4) Diary of a Fly

Written by: Doreen Cronin

Illustrated by: Harry Bliss

Joanna Cotler Books

2007

32 pages

Picture Book

            I chose this book at a Scholastic Warehouse Book Sale because the title sounds like it would be a good book to introduce journaling with, and I thought that was a neat concept. The book is basically the diary entries of a young fly and her family as she grows older. Throughout the book, she goes to school, gets in trouble, and realizes that she has some cool “powers” other animals don’t have. She decides she wants to be a superhero, and though some of her peers discourage her, saying “You’re just a tiny fly!” She learns that, despite her size, heroes come in all shapes and sizes. The book is also a great outline of the life cycle of a fly.

           

            The pictures in this book are great. They take up the entire page, with the diary entry for that day placed in an area of negative space. The photos are hand drawn and colored with watercolors. The colors are bright and very indicative of a “day in the life of a fly”. On every page, there is some sort of text on the page aside from the actual diary entry. It’s usually a speech bubble or a label on a food item, sign, etc. They include illustrations that are cartoons, but also anatomically correct examples of bugs, insects, and other small animals.

            This book would be very well suited for any elementary school student based on the lesson you used it in. Just a few of the many ways a teacher could incorporate this book into classroom lessons would be in a science lesson about flies or other bugs, or a science lesson about life cycles. I would probably use it in my classroom as a way to introduce daily journals and to teach my students how to correctly do a journal entry.