The Sweetest Ladybug - Isabel Cintra - ★★★.½

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AUTHOR: Isabel Cintra
ILLUSTRATOR: Zeka Cintra
GENRE:Children's Picture Book.
PUBLICATION DATE: November 24, 2021
RATING: 3.5 stars.

This is a cute little story where the illustrations outshine the content.

Johana is a smart little girl who is fascinated by her father’s scientific books about insect. When she meets a magical cricket who shrinks her to insect size and takes her on a wonderful journey through the outside world, she learns a lot and enjoys herself as well.

The story is more of a fun adventure with bits of information about insects. The illustrations are really cute. Johana is adorable, both as a little girl as well as later in her ladybug costume. The cricket is based a lot on Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio.

While the cover page and illustrations make it look like it is meant for really young readers, there are some difficult words in the text such as “dapper” and “foliage” which will necessitate adult support while reading.

I didn’t enjoy this read as much as I had thought because of some formatting issues:
1. The font was really small in my ARC copy and as a result the text looked very cluttered.
2. I don’t get why the spoken dialogues were separated with an em dash rather than with quotation marks. This added to the cluttered feel.

If the formatting is taken care of, the story will certainly have a better appeal.

My thanks to Underline Publishing LLC and NetGalley for the ARC of “The Sweetest Ladybug”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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