Bug in a Vacuum
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A bug flies through an open door into a house, through a bathroom, across a kitchen and bedroom and into a living room ... where its entire life changes with the switch of a button. Sucked into the void of a vacuum bag, this one little bug moves through denial, bargaining, anger, despair and eventually acceptance -- the five stages of grief -- as it comes to terms with its fate. Will there be a light at the end of the tunnel? Will there be dust bunnies in the void? A funny, suspenseful and poignant look at the travails of a bug trapped in a vacuum.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this half-comic, half-tragic tale, Watt (the Scaredy Squirrel series) portrays a bug that gets sucked into a canister vacuum and travels through K bler-Ross's five stages of grief. Watt's muted spreads feature midcentury modern interiors and ersatz advertising, with no humans in sight. The bug (it appears to be a fruit fly) becomes trapped inside the prison of the vacuum along with the family dog's stuffed toy, a mute but comforting companion. In a long, pun-laden monologue, readers watch the fly express denial ("This is amazing!"), bargaining, anger ("No more Mr. Nice Fly!"), despair ("I'll be a prisoner forever"), and, finally, acceptance ("I don't wish to change a thing," it says, looking resigned). Outside the canister, the dog mirrors the same emotions with regard to its lost toy. The story may require some context-setting from adults ("What does bargaining mean?"), while the bug's fate it survives, but in a strange new place doesn't offer the consolation it might. But young readers, who are so often subjected to events they can't control, will easily sympathize with the fly. Ages 5 9.
