Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991 TAG: 9103210112
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
How did it feel?
"It tickled," said Price.
"I think it was friendly," said Anna Johnson, 8, who held it, too.
Some, like 5-year-old Niki Shelton, weren't convinced. Asked if she wanted the big hissing cockroach from Madagascar on her hand, Shelton shook her head.
Bugs aren't for everyone, of course.
But at the Christiansburg branch library this week, bugs were treated with respect.
There were bug books and exhibits, mounted monarch butterflies and luna moths, live cockroaches and a live Virginia Tech graduate student - David Judge - to show slides and answer questions about bugs.
Three elementary school kids brought their own bugs for Judge to identify. There was a brown lacewing, a daddy longlegs and a slug.
What the kids did mostly, though, was look and listen. And in the end, they checked out library books on bugs - which was just what Jo Brown wanted them to do. Brown, children's coordinator for the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library, said the weekly programs on various topics are designed to get kids interested in the library.
"We had a worm race one summer," she said. Other programs have focused on Dr. Seuss and on native Americans.
On Monday in Christiansburg, the topic was "Bugs, Butterflies and Bookworms." And the kids - many of them from Christiansburg elementary schools - spent the first half-hour watching Judge's slides and answering his bug questions.
Even the hard ones.
Like, what do you call someone who works with bugs?
And how can you tell a grasshopper is an insect?
And name the only place in the world where bugs don't live?
Or what is the process of bug development from larva to pupa to adult called?
"Entomologist," they responded correctly. And "It has six legs." And "Antarctica" and "Metamorphosis."
"You guys know everything!" said Judge, after the "metamorphosis" response. Then he got suspicious.
How many of them, Judge asked the 50 or so children present, had seen the entomology department's slide show?
Right away, there was a thicket of raised hands.
Judge said a number of people in the entomology department give presentations to the community. Still, many of the children hadn't held the hissing cockroaches, named for the noise they make when threatened.
When Judge took the big bugs out of their terrarium, kids crowded around.
But Tara Hopkins stayed at the back of the room with the bug books. There are plenty of bugs, the Christiansburg Elementary School pupil insisted, that are fine with her.
"I like butterflies. Ladybugs. Moths. Ants. And fireflies," she said. But she said she didn't care for cockroaches.
Meanwhile Tara Anderson, 6, stood up front watching a big cockroach run over Judge's hand.
Did she like bugs? "Uh-huh," she said. "Especially monarchs."
Ladybugs are OK, too, Tara said. "Sometimes I put three or four of them on my arm."
Would she like to put one of the hissing cockroaches from Madagascar on her arm?
She thought it over for a minute.
"No," she said.
by CNB