Bee & Me

October 27, 2008
A book that will draw inevitable—and not necessarily favorable—comparisons to Rufus Butler Seder’s Gallop!
and Swing!
, this story boasts color pictures in inset panels that appear to move as the pages are turned. The animations—a dog chasing a bee, a daisy opening its petals—provide a “wow” factor, but unexceptional rhyming verse and illustrations weigh down the project. An anthropomorphized honeybee is chased by a dog into a house, where she is trapped after a frightened boy shuts the window. The bee begs for his aid, explaining how bees help plants, trees and flowers grow (“And then from her eye came a big, shiny tear./ 'We just want to help but you all run in fear’ ”). The animated panels are not especially well integrated, and a list of facts about bees is at odds with the fanciful depictions of a four-legged bee with big blue eyes. Ages 4–up.