Rotbeesten

Aanstekelijk boek over insecten en andere kriebelbeestjes

Gemma Venhuizen & Tjarko van der Pol
Luitingh-Sijthoff - 2018

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Hello!

Welcome to this website about a collection of world’s most unfamous animals: the creepy crawlies!

They might have a bad reputation for being itchy, scary looking and annoying, but if you look close enough, they are, in fact, beautiful, fascinating and very important. That’s why my friend Tjarko and I decided to make a book about them: ‘Rotbeesten’ (Chinese name: 盖世的虫子 那些“讨厌”的虫子们)

Who the both of us are, you’d like to know? I’ll tell you more about us, and about our book, in a bit. But let me first introduce some of the stars of our book in more detail: the creepy crawlies themselves.

You might ask: why do we need bugs, snails and spiders? I would like to ask you some questions in return: do you like orange juice? Or chocolate? Or flowers? And do you like walking around without stepping in poo all the time? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you must love two of the main characters of our book: the honey bee and the dung beetle. Because honeybees are important pollinators and dung beetles help to remove – you will never guess it – dung from the ground. There are a lot more stories like that to tell. Slugs, for example, do have some super powers like being very sticky – doctors use their slime as a ‘bio-bandage’ during operations! And grasshoppers might become very important to us in the future, because they could provide a healthy and tasty snack. They’re all in our book - 30 in total. Tjarko made beautiful drawings of them all, together with some funny characters. If you look closely, you can even discover Tjarko and myself on each page!

Oh, I promised to tell you a bit more about ourselves! You might know Tjarko van der Pol already from one of his other books: Pretpark De Poepfabriek (Chinese name: 便便工厂) or Het Hersenhotel (Chinese name: 大脑旅馆). We started to work together more than 5 years ago, since we’re both working for the same Dutch newspaper. I loved Tjarko’s drawings from the start: they’re funny, original, inspiring and you can stare at them for hours and still discover new things – it never gets boring! And what I also like about Tjarko himself (beside the fact that he is creative and very kind) is that he is a big insect lover. Just after we met he told me that ants are his favorite animals, and that he always saved them as a kid. As for myself: I ate ants when I was a baby, but apart from that I was very friendly to all small animals. I never kill mosquitoes!

This drawing Tjarko made for me on the day the Dutch version of our book came out:

So that’s me, Gemma, with the curly hair. And the handsome man is Tjarko! So now you know the story why we decided to make a book about creepy crawlies.