THINK BIG

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.