Follow Marla the housefly in this story and share her interesting experiences. Hopefully, she dodges the swat, swerves past the spider’s web and speeds past that pesky lizard. This story may just change your view of the common housefly.
I received an ARC free from BookSirens and this is my voluntary honest review. Cute! Quick read! Interesting! Bright, colorful illustrations! Fun! Enjoyable! Well written! Don't miss!
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Marla, the Fly explores a day in the life of Marla the housefly and the troubles she goes through to get food. The illustrations are super cute and I love that at the end, kiddos can learn about flies. I do wish the text did not curve, that makes it difficult for a story time (for me, anyway) and it was a lot of text on the page.
First, thank you to BookSirens and the author for the opportunity to preview this book before publication.
I read this last night with my 4 yr old daughter. This was most certainly a non-fiction book. The illustrations were bright, colorful, and allowed for easy identification of objects within the pictures. Because the illustrations were not abstract or flowery, my daughter was able to follow the story easily and they also allowed for questions such as "How is she feeling?" and "Would you want to eat that?"
That being said, the book content also forced some awkward conversations that I was not prepared for at the time. For example, "why are they eating a dead cat?!" "Didn't the cat have a family?" So a quick lesson on body decomposition was had right before bedtime. My daughter also said that she did not like the illustration of an angry woman yelling at the fly, but I had to remind her that we get frustrated when a fly is buzzing around our heads. Then another awkward conversation about how a sweet-looking, smiling housefly is fiction and not a good representation of the annoying houseflies that we try to kill. At the end, the book explained the life cycle of the housefly which was interesting. While the book clearly stated that a fly only lives 28 days max, it was still sad to see a tombstone for this smiling fly.
Overall, this book made my daughter feel sorry for a housefly that is just trying to make it in this world. And while the story and illustrations were easy to follow, this book left me scratching my head and worried that she would have nightmares.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The story of a fly from beginning to end and the dangers that could await it.
This story was cute and does a great job trying to educate the life of a fly to young readers. It is a rhyming book, which I love unfortunately though something with the pace felt off and sometimes the rhymes did not flow smoothly.
The majority of the story I thought was entertaining, however could scare some young readers. There is one page that maybe be triggering where it's described that the fly ate the guts of a dead cat. This seemed to be a bit too graphic and didn't really fit, but the author did try to explain the cat died of old age.
I really loved the illustrations. The pictures were bright and the fly was super cute with its big doe eyes.
Although the goal is to be educational, could be a tad scary for young readers and wasn't what I expected from the super cute young style illustrations. 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I didn’t like this book. I felt that it’s overly morbid and violent for the target audience (read aloud book for toddlers). I understand the author’s desire to humanize house flies, but I feel that Skye Wade’s bug books do a better job of educating kids on bugs and their anatomy and value. I received an advance copy of this book for free, and I’m leaving this review voluntarily.
Marla, The Fly is a lovely picture book journaling Marla’s adventures throughout the day. Kids will delight in Marla’s fearless personality and learn new things about flies along the way. They may never look at household flies the same way!
I received an advanced review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.