Look down toward the ground and a whole world turns up. That is the invitation this book opens with, and the die cut holes deliver on it literally: an insect visible through an opening on one page vanishes when you turn it, and something else has taken its place.

The appearing and disappearing is what holds a three year old, but the content underneath is proper natural history. Ladybirds, ants, dragonflies, moths, beetles and caterpillars are shown chomping, creeping, flying and spinning, and the text names what each is doing and where it lives. A caterpillar chomps leaves through night and day. Insects reach their larval phase. Moths flutter in the moonlight.

Britta Teckentrup works in layered multimedia collage, and the palettes are the reason adults linger: a spring hedgerow in chalky greens and pinks, then a night meadow in deep forest green with a crescent moon. It is the best looking bug book on the shelf by a wide margin.

Part of the Peek-Through series with Tree, Bee, Ocean, Moon and Home. Read aloud in one sitting, then reopened by a child on their own to hunt for the insects again.