IN THE TREES, HONEY BEES

Simple rhymes and striking full-bleed illustrations introduce the daily lives of honeybees to very young readers and listeners. Arbo’s detailed paintings show vistas of a bucolic farm visited by oversized honeybees, glorious flowers and close-ups of a hive inside a tree. Rhyming couplets of three-syllable lines are accompanied by a line or two of more detailed prose on most double-page spreads. Two pages of back matter add more information about honeybees, although there is nothing about the colony collapse and near disappearance of feral colonies. Readers and listeners may be left wondering just how the nectar and pollen bees collect becomes honey. The main text seems to give the impression that the two work together in cells. Although the backmatter explains that they are stored in separate cells it does not explain the use of either material or the modifications necessary in the process by which nectar becomes honey. Show this entry in the Sharing Nature with Children series to young budding naturalists but be prepared for their questions. (Informational picture book. 4-7)