An effective presentation of a charismatic creature.
A busy book about a famously busy insect.
It could be said that this volume is swarming with facts: about the great variety of bee species, as well as bee anatomy, life cycle, senses, and more. These topics are presented in discrete double-page spreads that bustle with images of the insects. Laid out for readers who like their information nonlinear, paragraphs of text are placed amid the bees and flowers that populate Chakrabarti’s compositions. Explicating a four-step diagram of pollination, for instance, separate paragraphs describe how the pollen from one flower’s stamen makes its way to another flower’s pistil. Hoare takes care to use appropriate scientific vocabulary, printed in boldface and defined in context. Some of this specialized vocabulary, such as electroreception, proboscis, and resin, also makes its way into a two-page appended glossary. Honeybees dominate most children’s nonfiction about bees, and there are certainly plenty of them here. But Hoare and Chakrabarti do their best to share the love, introducing the sweat bee, the blue carpenter bee, the orchid cuckoo bee, and many more. In addition to the attention it pays to global bee diversity, this effort stands out for its explicit and accurate (if a tad oversimplified) assurance that “honeybees are not in trouble, because beekeepers look after them,” and its eminently child-friendly suggestions for helping wild bees.
An effective presentation of a charismatic creature. (index) (Nonfiction. 6-10)Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798887772738
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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