Bugs of Northern California

Rating:
Summary: easy to use and informative
Review: I just got this guide last month. It has bright attractive illustrations and was an immediate hit with my kids and me. We didn't know much to start with, but this guide has a picture index in the front that makes it easy to find the mystery bug. For us, it helps that we don't need to know taxonomy. Because it is region specific, we don't have to waste a lot of time wading through all the bugs we're unlikely to see anyway--I assume this is something like the "top 100" of local bugs, so just about everything I see in the book looks familiar. I also like that the book provides a little narrative about each bug, not just its name, so we feel like we're really learning something. I suspect it's not big enough for all the bugs we'll come across, but so far it is serving us well by wetting our appetite.