This book opens with basic beetle structure and function, and then covers topics such as reproduction, feeding, communication, and defense mechanisms, presenting illustrative cases across double-page spreads.

"It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson--a sensible schoolmarm and lonely spinster--is just trying to get through life. But one day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and her tidy, circumscribed life, to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of an insect that may or may not exist: the golden beetle of New Caledonia, Margery's childhood obsession ever since her father gave...

When his best friend, a human boy named James, goes away on vacation, Marvin the beetle worries that their friendship may end.

Excerpts from Walt Whitman, the Bible, Chinese nursery rhymes, and other literary sources accompany illustrations of such insects as the cricket, grasshopper, and puss-mouth caterpillar.