Tuesday Storytime: Honeybees

A pair of really long books, and one super-short book in the middle to make up for it.  The room was packed today, and lots of wiggle-worms, so hard to say how much of it actually was seen/heard.

The Honeybee Man
Lela Nargi, illustrations by Kyrsten Brooker
ISBN: 9780375849800
Oddly-perspectived-picture-frames focus attention on the tiny bees and the urban environment.

Reviewed here.
Fred lives in Brooklyn with his family: Cat the cat, Copper the dog, and Mab, Nefertiti, and Boadica the queen bees with their hives full of children.  Fred's honeybees travel out through Brooklyn and gather pollen and nectar from neighbors small yards, rooftop gardens, windowboxes, and the linden trees lining the avenues, and even (sometimes, if he's lucky) from the blueberry bushes across town.  Once they've worked all summer, Fred pulls out the frames of honey, caps and spins them, and decants the lovely honey into jars that he gives out to his neighbors one late-August afternoon.  Good, but very wordy, and the illustrations are interesting, but not exactly vibrant - lots of muted colors and flesh-tones and browns and greys of buildings.


 
Bear and Bee
Sergio Ruzzier
ISBN: 9781423159575
Roly-poly bear is offered honey by a friendly little winged bug, but he's worried about the dread bee.

Super short, super cute.  Bear wakes up from his winter nap and is hungry.  A cute little yellow winged creature (sizes are NOT to scale here) offers some honey, and bear is tempted, but he's afraid of the BEE!  He's never seen one, but it's huge, and has fangs, and claws, and never shares honey.  A quick run-down of bear's personal attributes (huge, has fangs, has claws) has him momentarily worried that HE's the BEE!  but his new bug friend reassures him, then cautiously explains the truth, and re-offers the honey.  Now bear has a full tummy, a full mind, and a new friend.  Adorable.


Flight of the Honey Bee
Raymond Huber, illustrated by Brian Lovelock
ISBN: 9780763667603
Beautiful vibrant colors and expressionistic close-ups of bees.

Reviewed here.  A bit long for storytime, especially with a big and energetic group, but it was very well received, and the illustrations especially captured the interest of lots of the kids.  Really well done book, and very glad I'm aware of it.  Nonfiction is so hard to do for this age-group, and I'm always glad to have the chance to do more of it.