Beetle Boy – M. G. Leonard - Middle Grade Story Sack

Today we are continuing our Story Sack feature with a story sack complied especially for Middle Grade readers, and constructed around M.G. Leonard’s hugely successful Beetle Boy. Being for older readers, we have consciously played with the traditional format of the Story Sack to make it appeal to more mature children, and also endeavoured to make it exciting for boys in particular. This is made really very easy because the novel Beetle Boy is such a riveting read, with so many themes running through, that it is really a very easy book to base a story sack around. 

So firstly a very quick blurb about Beetle Boy supplied by my ten year old son:

Beetle Boy is a fantastic and exciting book all about a boy called Darkus who discovers huge beetles that have had experiments done on them, and learns that a creepy lady is trying to capture them. Darkus’s father has gone missing so he goes and lives with his uncle and together with his two friends and his new pet rhinoceros beetle they join forces to save the beetles and find his dad.

So for this story sack, we picked a non-fiction book Explore Natures: Beetles and BUG, which does exactly what it says on the tin, with lots of beautifully full colour photographs and illustrations. 

Traditionally story sacks come with soft toys, but with this one being for Middle Grade readers, we decided that they would require something a bit more grown up, so the soft toy has been replaced by a beetle in resin, and a bug hunting book plus a kit comprising of scrapbook, looking glass, compass and binoculars to assist with the finding of bugs in the local area, identifying them and recording the findings. 

Another must for story sacks is a game, so with this one, I’ve opted for the beautiful and educational Bug Bingo, BUT there are many different games which would also be very appropriate, plus fit smaller budgets such as: Bug Top Trumps, or the vintage classic Beetles, or the more recent strategy game Hive.

This displays that story sack can be utilised to inspire older children to read, and are not exclusive to Key Stage One. This Beetle Boy story sack has a blend of fiction, exciting and educational activities and non-fiction reading, all of which are things that appeal to middle grade children and to boys in particular. Why not try compiling one your self or even seeing if you can turn a young reader into a Beetle Boy or even a Beetle Queen!

Thank you for stopping by, and please drop by again for more Story Stack ideas, coming up in the next few weeks we have; YA Story Sacks, Story Sacks on a budget and Biography Story Sacks.