#ace lacewing

when i was a kid we had this app on our tv called tumblebooks, which was like an e-book with narration and animation. one of the books on there was ace lacewing bug detective, and i read it EVERYDAY until our subscription ended. (bad bugs are my business was there too which i also read lots but book 1 was my fav in particular and the one i'm primarily talking about)

the writing has a good mix of a dark, mysterious atmosphere as well as fun insect facts and puns. as a kid i thought this book felt more mature than the other books on there. there is no shying away from bugs eating other bugs, kidnapping, attemped m*rder, death etc. i also cannot recall any children’s book where a main character has the same occupation as xerces (iykyk) and i LOVED it. oh and the city is called motham city jgkbfjfk. visually, biedrzycki's illustrations are gorgeous and detailed and the colours in the first one to me especially are really nice. imo book 1 has a different vibe than the other 2 books that i like more, being both darker in tone and visually, which makes me wish we could've gotten more of motham at night

there are a few things that i like that i could say are fairly obscure or not really things that have a following, but i feel like ace lacewing is genuinely something that isn't just not talked about anymore, but something like no one talks about at all?! it sucks because i know that if the right audience had found it at the time so many people would've loved it and maybe we would’ve got more than 3 books. each book has a map of motham and in the latest one, the museum of science was newly added so i wonder if a 4th one was planned and was going to take place there, but now we'll likely never see it :( i even like to imagine what an ace lacewing tv show would be like even though it won't happen