Diary of a Fly

Doreen Cronin - Diary of a Fly with pictures by Harry Bliss is the child's world as seen through the eyes of a child fly.

The narrative is told is journal style, with text and large pictures filling each page. June 7: Tomorrow is the first day of school. I'm so nervous. What if I'm the only one who eats regurgitated food? The pictures shows a worried little fly wearing a big pink bow and sitting in a bottle cap.

June 8: Great news! Everyone eats regurgitated food!  

And, we find the fly kids sitting down to lunch being ladled onto their trays from a thimble by a cafeteria worker. The kids are perched on pushpin seats, their trays are placed on tables made from a Crust toothpaste box, and other boxes. Osage County First Grade exclaimed, ‘they get straws!' In our cafeteria we do not have straws.

Life for a young fly is interesting, attending school in a milk box building, learning to fly, staying with the baby sitter and getting tangled in fly paper, school pictures, Science projects, friends, learning about the food chain, the return of the baby sitter astride a frog, 327 little flies sitting exactly where Mom and Dad had left them atop an apple core, Fly dreams of becoming a superhero and the days pass with each one filled with adventure and some fly facts thrown in.

Among the facts we learn; flies can land upside down, average flight speed of a fly is 4.5 miles, they have 4,000 lenses in each eye and flies beat their wings 200 times per second.

Osage County First Grade enjoys a touch of gross with their facts, Diary of a Fly has just enough yuck and, crass to keep Little People fascinated as they learn the real facts about flies woven into the tale.

Fly herself is an endearing, mebbe even adorable little fly kid character. Writer Cronin and Illustrator Bliss have caught in imagination what a fly's world might look like if a fly did the kinds of things that human type kids do. Fly attends school, along with her 327 brothers and sisters she helps to freak out the ladybug babysitter and she has kid type adventures with her friends Worm and Spider.

Educational and child pleasing Diary of a Fly is filled with Artist Bliss's comic book style illustrations which go well with the wittiness of the anecdote nicely.

Vocabulary used is a little beyond the reading level of K-1, however
Little People love words, and regurgitated and maggot are words the kids all recognize after the first reading.

I like Diary of a Fly in part because of the wonderful discussion potential as I read, Kids listen and look at the illustrations. The word or the item yarmulke is not one my first grade students recognized, First Graders are just beginning to understand that the whole world is not precisely as their own family, town and setting. One little yarmulke wearing fly offers an opportunity to discuss the fact that various folks in our world have differing viewpoints, religions and customs than our own.

My kids recognized ‘recycled' immediately, we recycle a lot in our classroom, and the fly school received thumbs up of approval for their use of recycled items for their cafeteria. The old fashioned clothes line where the little flies sit waiting for their flying lesson provides occasion to discuss what a clothes line is, many of my students had not a clue, clothes pins, so commonplace a tool when I was a child, are craft objects to my First Graders. Naughtiness, whining and time out illustrated by Fly gives First Graders a chance to voice their own misbehavior in an understanding, and introspective manner.

The notion that a gross little, lollypop slurping First Grade kid might provide a Science lesson for a fly kid; gave my students a new perspective on their own notions of what constitutes yuck or gross.

Diary of a Fly is a book chosen often for free reading and DEAR reading by Osage County First Grade. Happy to recommend.

Other books by this author/illustrator team includes: Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider in addition to Diary of a Fly

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Reviewed by Molly's Reviews
molly martin
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Product and Shipping information from Amazon
TITLE: Diary of a Fly (Library Binding)
AUTHOR: Doreen Cronin
ILLUSTRATOR: Harry Bliss
Product Details
Listening level Ages 3-9
Reading level: Upper Primary
Library Binding: 40 pages
Publisher: Joanna Cotler
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060001577
ISBN-13: 978-0060001575
Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.6 x 0.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces

$16.89 In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.


About the Author
Doreen Cronin is the New York Times bestselling author of Diary of a Worm  Diary of a Spider; as well as Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, a Caldecott Honor Book; and Giggle, Giggle, Quack. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband and their daughters.