Uncle Paul explains the world to his nephews and niece in the evenings: why bread rises, what a wasp builds with, how a match works, where the frost goes. Fabre was the greatest observer of insects of his century and wrote schoolbooks to feed his family. The teaching method - a question at the table, an answer that takes a week - is the model every popular science book since has tried to copy. Thirty-five plates by painters from Chardin to Renoir show children at their lessons, at play, and at work in the fields, matching Fabre's own world of small hands learning how things are made.