When Grandma Needlethorpe receives a note from her granddaughter telling about her upcoming role as a bumblebee in the spring concert, Grandma has only one thought: She must knit a sweater for Nellie. After rooting around in her yarn and needle stash, she finds just the right colors and sets to work. And when Nellie tries on her black-and-yellow sweater, she loves it just as much as she loves her grandmother, even if the sweater reaches her knees (“It’ll keep my knees warm”) and the sleeves hang way below her hands. She loves it so much that she wears it to school to show her friends. They all think it is “BEE-YEW-TIFUL,” too. Nellie has a lot of trouble keeping her sweater clean, and repeated washings and repeated shrinking keep the story moving. Straightforward language and plot keep the pages turning and make this a readable story for emergent readers and storytime alike. Energetic watercolor illustrations of Nellie’s wild red hair and her grandmother’s squinting eyes provide humor for this tribute to knitters everywhere. (Picture book. 4-7)
