Bug City

Follow a whimsical day in the life of a Bug City family, with imaginative illustrations of real insects, by American artist Dahlov Ipcar (1917-2017).

This charming bug family (mama is a ladybug and papa is a daddy longlegs) share a day in Bug City, where they go shopping (for calico moths and velvet ants, of course) and visit the zoo (with rhinoceros beetles and ant lions).
The bug family goes to work, cleans house, goes shopping, and enjoys a parade and the zoo. Children of all ages will be entranced by these bright colorful illustrations–a monarch butterfly riding a goldbug coach pulled by horseflies–and familiar end-of-day activities like dinner and bedtime where only glowworms and the lightning bugs light up the darkness with their small lights. Ipcar’s flamboyant, four-color illustrations make for an amusing and quirky book in which children can also learn to identify many different kinds of insects. Ipcar was a well-known artist of the WPA-era and also illustrated a number of other children’s books. Ipcar’s works are now in the permanent collections of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. She is also represented in the leading art museums of Maine, as well as in many corporate and private collections throughout the country.