Mary Auld’s 2025 picture book Small Mighty Dung Beetle strikes a nice balance between fun and informational/educational.
The fun–for kids, and for immature folks like me, comes from focusing on dung (feces, poo, etc.), from some of the choices about what’s included (like a sidebar-sized note on the Egyptian god Khepri, who was often drawn as a dung beetle and pushed the sun across the sky), from the friendly but confident tone as the dung beetle narrates her own story, and from Hannah Bailey’s illustrations. These illustrations combine with design choices to make the book more engaging and interactive than most informational books. For example, the front cover has an oval cut into it, drawing fingers and eyes to the dung beetle. Late in the book there’s a foldout map of the world, to show where dung beetles live. A timeline of the life cycle of the dung beetle wraps around the map, adding visual interest and suggesting a connection.
All of this means that the book achieves its educational goals painlessly, even pleasantly. The book credits Sally-Ann Spence (entomologist and science educator) as a consultant. The book uses many analogies and examples to inform readers about dung beetles. And really, who could ask for more?
