Cricket in the Thicket by Carol Murray illustrated by Melissa Sweet

There are thirty poems in this lively collection and as a bonus each page also has a small fact box with extra science details about the featured 'bug'.

Walking Stick Courage

If it's skinny
like a twig - 
and it looks 
like a twig - 
and it feels
like a twig - 
then -
it must be a twig.
C'mon, let's touch it.
You first!

I was browsing the poetry section of the library I visit each week (looking for one poem in a picture book for an IBBY talk we are preparing) when I spied this 'sweet' looking poetry collection. Melissa Sweet's art is always so special. Now for the bad news - yes this is out of print - but it might be available in your local or school library. This book was published in 2017.

Sweet’s dependably eye-catching illustrations—infused with humor here—are an appropriate match. Care was given to balancing gender among those poems that use pronouns, and there is, incidentally, a note devoted to the fact that female ladybugs are nearly indistinguishable from male ladybugs. Happy-go-lucky fun with words, collage, and a smattering of facts about bugs. Kirkus

Cricket in the Thicket is an entertaining and informative collection of poems.  Poems are written from a child-like perspective, using vocabulary and sound words they will enjoy.  The poems have a smooth rhythm and flow.  Often a whimsical approach is taken when describing the insects, such as the idea of hugging a ladybug or a cricket being an alarm. Books 4 Learning

See more books by Carol Murray here. 

Carol describes her book: A nonfiction picture book of poetry about fascinating insects with accompanying facts, notes, and illustrations by the Caldecott-winning Melissa Sweet.

Pray tell us, Mr. Mantis,

Do you pray or simply prey?

Do you scout about for victims

Or fold your hands all day?

In addition to the playful rhyming poems, the supplementary text highlights surprising facts about bugs of all kinds - from familiar ants to exotic dragonflies, cringe-worthy ticks and magnificent fireflies. Melissa Sweet's collage-inspired mixed-media illustrations beautifully render these creatures and complement the poems' whimsical tones. This is an enchanting and informative look at a perennial topic of interest for kids - cool bugs!

Carol Murray loves ladybugs, Melissa Sweet loves stick insects and I love the idea (I have never seen one of course) of fireflies.

We glitter and glimmer
and put on a show
in honor of Earth - 
come and share in our glow!

Woven in, around and under the title text Melissa Sweet places many of the bugs highlighted in the narrative.  She gives them personality with a plus! The varnished red on cricket and green on thicket add to the pizzazz of her design.  ... These illustrations rendered in watercolor and mixed media are as fascinating as the subjects they feature.  On the title page a grasshopper is leaping over an array of flowers beneath the text.  On the dedication page a close-up of a leaf shows a grasshopper munching out a large hole.  He is looking right at the reader through the gap in the leaf. For each poem a distinctive, individualistic image has been created, many of them bringing the insect world closer to readers. ...  Her unique details will have you stopping at every page turn; a cricket poised on the edge of a red tennis shoe, ants crawling over a single stalk as a night scene unfolds, inchworms and measuring tape for a garden plot, the B in buzz becoming bumblebee wings, six circles showing a roly-poly rolling...up and unrolling and June bugs blasting against a light bulb.  ... Librarian's Quest