THE BEE WITHOUT WINGS

A warm relationship develops between a young child and a wingless bumblebee.

When Sasha notices the titular bee, she is immediately moved to help, first placing the inert body in the cup of a crocus, then offering her a sugar-water solution. The latter remedy works, reviving the bee, who comically poses on two pipestem legs, the other four flexed like a bodybuilder’s. In the land of the living the bee may be, but without wings, she can’t forage for food or flee predators. Christening her new insect friend Bea, Sasha cares for her all summer, even going so far as to fashion a homemade paraglider so Bea can experience flight. But bumblebees’ lives are short, “and one sad, unfixable day, Bea was gone.” The following spring, Sasha pays tribute to Bea with a bee-friendly garden. Williams’ flight of fancy is stronger visually than textually, illustrations investing both the peanut-shaped black-and-yellow bee and Sasha’s cat, Molly, with expressive appeal. Bea is voiceless, however, and this combines with her physical helplessness to undermine the illustrations’ efforts—she’s more an object for Sasha’s benevolence than a character with any real agency. Sasha has beige skin and a light-brown bob. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Real bees need human help; this fictional bee needs a character makeover to really fly.