The Honeybee

The plight of the endangered honeybee is the raison d'ètre of this story, Hall (The Jacket) explains in a concluding note, though it's a long and twisty flight to reach it. Readers hear the first bee ("It's closer, it's coming, it's buzzing, it's humming...") before they see it arrive and land on a flower in search of nectar. The singsong verse is aflutter with strained rhyming: "There now, it drills now, / the bee sips and spills now, / there now, it swills now, it sits oh-so-still now./ There now, it fills now, it's back to the hill now...." After the bee's buzzing summons others to mealtime, they all swarm back to the hive to begin the honey-making process, whose description may need translating by adults: "We suck out the nectar, we suck it straight through./ Chew, chew--we're changing its makeup, we're giving the nectar a chemical shake-up." Dominated by golden hues punctuated with splashes of neon yellow, the airy mixed-media art by Arsenault (Cloth Lullaby) helps kids decipher the goings-on, in and out of the hive. Tips on how to help preserve the bee population follow the story. Ages 4-8. (May)

Copyright 2018 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

PreS-Gr 2--Hall celebrates honeybees with a lyrical poem. She hears a bee among the flowers, then finds and follows it as it searches for nectar, gathers pollen, and returns to the hive to dance. She watches other foragers leave as house bees make the nectar into honey. The bees huddle quietly with their queen through the long winter, reemerging in the spring. This simplifies the process slightly, but doesn't diminish the wonder. These well-crafted rhyming couplets beg to be read aloud. Set on gloriously illustrated pages and nicely paced, the text appears to be hand printed in varying fonts, becoming part of Arsenault's light and lively illustrations done in ink, gouache, pencil, and colored pencil. The artist uses neon orange to great effect, highlighting the pollen bees find and carry off. (Adult readers may want to point out that bees see the world's color very differently.) After the busyness of summer work, a wordless spread--a snowy landscape where the hive hangs peacefully from a tree--emphasizes the quiet rest of winter. Yellow-and-black striped endpapers and an embossed cover add to the effect. While the narrative and illustrations will appeal to very young listeners, the back matter, which touches on current threats, seems addressed to older children, suggesting ways in which they can help honeybees survive. VERDICT A sweet success; purchase for most shelves.--Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

"Embraces the pleasures of listening as well as learning as it follows the denizens of a particular hive over the course of a year. . . . Hall's poetic text lets internal and ending rhymes, imagery, dialogue, and onomatopoeias flit, zoom, and hover in consonance with the apian protagonist. Arsenault's pencil, paint, and ink pictures are gloriously vibrant, judiciously balancing black, grays, and golds, and directing and refreshing young viewers' attention with touches of her blazing yellow-gold. In an appended letter to readers, Hall notes the importance of honeybees and suggests ways children can help support these crucial creatures."—BCCB