LICE

Winner of Germany's most renowned literary award for young readers - the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2025 (Nonfiction)

"A delightfully hilarious and disgusting tour of everything you need to know about lice, told for the discerning parasite. Gross in the best possible way!" -Betsy Bird, School Library Journal

Eek! In a hilarious spin on insect books, this lavishly illustrated survival guide for lice—by lice—helps us understand the miracle of life everywhere. 

Lice unite! Finally a book that celebrates our extraordinary story and prepares us for survival. We are marvels of nature on a child’s head, with claws perfectly adapted to the diameter of the human hair. What other creature can lift two thousand times their body weight? What other bug can touch and taste with their entire body? 

Two hundred pages include everything lice need to know. Really, what is there not to love? We fart our way out of our eggs! Sure, we eat only human blood, and can survive swimming pools, hot showers and the crush of human fingers, but we are as delicate as they come. Take us from our natural environment and we die in minutes. We are nothing without our humans. They might never welcome us, but it is time for their respect. Life is a miracle—and so are lice!