Bradford P. Ward  -  Children's Book Author
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Book Louse

Book lice are not really lice and do not hurt or bite humans. Since they eat fungus they are attracted to moist, humid households where mold and mildew grow. This would include damp books and the book binding glue that holds the pages together. They can infest libraries, paper product warehouses, file cabinets and anywhere paper or cardboard is stored. About 1/16th of an inch they are wingless but can run surprisingly fast.
Image: Copyright © 2009 Ashley M. Bradford

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    artwork by Bradford P Ward
Picture
As an author's side note, if I was asked to pick my personal favorite character in A Pilgrimage of Pests, it would have to be Book Louse.  He appears in Chapter 16 and from that point on, the story takes on a whole new look.

Brilliant is the best way to describe this tiny bug-fellow who has spent his entire life crawling through the pages of  countless numbers of books.  In his own words, he says:  'Pick a topic.  Any subject.  I can expound on them all.'  And Book Louse cheerfully adds a familiar refrain each time he offers up his latest piece of factual information:  'You don't believe me?  Look it up.' 

So for the readers out there, "If you don't believe me, look up everything else this delightful character does in all the books in the trilogy, Cockroach of Meadowfield.


The video below gives you an idea of how tiny these book lice really are.
Keep in mind that the ruler being used is metric; so the space between each line is a millimeter (mm).

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