A review by nicktomjoe
The Greatest Show on Earth by Mini Grey

5.0

I can’t review this without spoilers because the final pages pull the rug out from under this reader at least.

A troupe of actors - all bugs drawn in Mini Grey’s best Carnival style - are putting together a show illustrating the history of the Earth from start to - well, the day of the show. All sorts of human rubbish helps tell the story, which is riotous as well as educational: these bugs can tell a tale! And only when we reach the humans - blink and you’ll miss them - did I start to see that this was a show for the creatures who survive. Humanity arrives, thinks itself in charge and then is gone, and the bugs that preceded us are left to carry on the story, putting on their show in the post-human era, on the gradually rewilding rubbish tips (look out for the larger animals on the edge of the wood). All of a sudden the reader is challenged, perspectives shift, and this is a book to delight, to inform, but in the end to warn: things change, and humans will eventually die out, leaving their mess behind.
Absolutely thoroughly recommend.