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HONEY BEE

Name: HONEY BEE
Author: Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu
ISBN: 978-1-68449-282-4

A FIRST FIELD GUIDE TO THE WORLD'S FAVORITE POLLINATING INSECT

From the Young Zoologist series

by Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu ; illustrated by Astrid Weguelin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 3, 2023

As hardworking as the insect it celebrates.

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A chatty, wide-ranging introduction to the honey bee for older preschoolers and younger elementary-age students.

Chakrabarti Basu, who introduces herself as “an Indian scientist who lives and works in the United States,” neatly balances respect for her audience’s curiosity with an understanding of the need to refrain from overloading them with information. “Located at the end of the abdomen, the stinger is a sharp point used for injecting bee venom into enemies. Bees sting when they’re angry or scared,” she writes. (While there is a glossary that concludes the book, it is not comprehensive; adults sharing this book with children may need to help them with words such as venom and, a bit later, superorganism, among others.) In thematically organized spreads and with text broken into neatly digestible chunks, Chakrabarti Basu discusses different honey bee species, beekeeping tools, honey bee anatomy, nests (both wild-built and “human-made”), the different members of a honey bee colony, and more. Weguelin’s bright illustrations are simple and a bit stylized but resist anthropomorphization; they lend themselves well to the book’s occasional diagrams. Children’s shelves are abuzz with bee books, but this efficient offering stands out in its comprehensiveness, unspooling for readers a neat string of cool facts: Honey bees like “dirty water” with lots of minerals in it; they can’t see red, but they do see blue and yellow. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

As hardworking as the insect it celebrates. (index) (Informational picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-68449-282-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Neon Squid/Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

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by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

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WHAT IF YOU HAD AN ANIMAL HOME!?

From the What if You Had . . .? series

by Sandra Markle ; illustrated by Howard McWilliam ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2024

Another playful imagination-stretcher.

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Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.

As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.

Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)