Barnaby the Bedbug Detective
Written by Catherine Stier
Illustrated by Karen Sapp
Did you know “an adult bedbug lives about twelve to eighteen months”? Or that “adult bedbugs can go months, and in rare cases, more than a year, without eating”? You know a book is going to be a great read when even the inside of the cover pulls you in with such fascinating facts! Barnaby the Bedbug Detective highlights the life of a working dog unlike most we are familiar. Seeing-eye dogs, therapy dogs, and the canine unit for police stations are familiar to almost everyone, but dogs’ trained as bedbug detectives shows just how industrious and useful these furry creatures can be!
Students read about a pound dog, Barnaby, who is passed up as a family dog but is later hand-picked as a perfect candidate for canine training in bedbug detection. Author Catherine Stier weaves a fiction tale based on facts, which triggers readers’ curiosity about different aspects of Barnaby’s job and perhaps other unlikely jobs that dogs can perform. Karen Sapp’s illustrations are bright and cheerful, yet informative; one particular illustration shows the lifecycle of the bedbug. This book would be a perfect fit in a unit about pets, careers, health or as an addition to a unit on research. After reading Barnaby the Bedbug Detective, students may be encouraged to ask questions and find the answers through research in the media center. To promote comprehension, students may be assigned to research a canine job and present their findings in a multimedia presentation. If students are interested in learning more about bedbugs in particular, there are several resources listed at the end of Barnaby. This book is well-suited for reading aloud in any second or third grade class; most students will relish in learning more about the gross facts and fascinating job of Barnaby.
Title: Barnaby the Bedbug Detective- Author: Catherine Stier
- Illustrator: Karen Sapp
- Publisher: Albert Whitman and Company
- Reviewer: Sharon Schulte
- Hardback, 32 pages
- ISBN: 978-0-8075-0904-3
- Genre: fiction/dogs/working-dogs
