Lice: How to Survive on Humans

Nominated for the German Children’s Book Prize

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!

Berta Páramo (Spain) studied architecture but after a Master’s degree in illustrated children’s books, illustration led her into another direction. Drawing helps her think and also expresses her way of understanding the world. She is specialized in non-fiction books where she likes to travel unexplored paths in every subject that she investigates. Her book FLUIDOTECA (Litera Libros, 2021) has been awarded a special mention by Bologna Ragazzi Awards 2022 in the Opera Prima category. And Berta’s work has been selected at Bologna Children’s Book Fair, World Illustration Awards or Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, inter alia.