UnBEElievables

February 27, 2012
In this high-spirited and lyrical homage to bees, smudgy paintings that resemble a child’s chalkboard drawings pair with collage elements to tenderly anthropomorphize the insects. “I’m a lover of clover./ A seeker of scent./ A zigzag flyover—/ A thing heaven-sent,” announces one bee, hovering over a daisy. The queen bee appears in a jeweled crown and pink robe, holding a mobile phone: “My doting daughters feed my belly,/ And I was raised on royal jelly.” Florian also includes descriptions of bee behavior (“One of bees’ most important roles in nature is a process called pollination”), which add a touch of biology to his tableaus. Ages 5–up.

January 15, 2012
Florian (Poetrees, 2010, etc.) bestows yet another pleasing mix of punny poems and colorful collages that blend whimsy and fact. The 14 poems introduce the roles of the queen, drones and workers and touch on such matters as anatomy, development from egg to bee, and even Colony Collapse Disorder. Spreads like "Swarm" epitomize Florian's skill at combining pithy rhymes, well-chosen facts and playfully tongue-in-cheek pictures. "When it's too crowded, then we form / A cloud of bees that's called a swarm." A three-sentence paragraph, offset in smaller type, explains why bees swarm, the role of scout bees and what happens after a new home site is found. The facing picture shows a veritable thunderhead of bees, dwarfing the sun and forest in its imperative to move house. Design is crisp: The text type, Neutra, sits in pleasing, contrasting colors against saturated pages of crimson, ochre-gold and grass green. Characteristically poking visual fun at facts, the mixed-media pictures present bees as cheeky girls and boys with red, kewpie-doll smiles. The queen sports a crown, scepter and cell phone, illustrating the couplet "My princely sons are known as drones-- / Not one of those boys ever phones!" Meanwhile, those Belushi-looking bad boys slouch and smirk in chunky medallions and sideways baseball caps. Florian shines again here. ("BEEbliography," websites for further inquiry) (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2012

Gr 3-5-Another winning compendium in the vein of Florian's Dinothesaurus (S & S, 2009), Insectlopedia (1998), and On the Wing (1996, both Harcourt). Cheerful anthropomorphized caricatures of honeybees accompany upbeat, rhyming wordplay and factual notes in the artist's familiar style. The multimedia pictures, created on brown paper bags, sometimes feature a single bee, sometimes a swarm. Tiny details in the drawings or backgrounds and embedded words in varied fonts add silly notes and visual surprises. Bee anatomy; the roles of the queen bee, drones, and worker bees; and aspects of communication, honey production, and life in the hive all get playful commentary. There's a poem on apiarists, too, and the closing piece, "Where Are the Bees?," reminds readers of the serious matter of the collapse of bee colonies in recent years. "All day we bees/Just buzz and buzz./That's what we duzz/And duzz and duzz." The book is just what Florian duzz and will be welcomed by his fans.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2012
Grades 2-5 The latest in Florian's series of poetry books spotlighting animals, this attractive volume features bees. From the opening Welcome, Welcome to Our Hive! to the closing verse, which notes the diminishing number of bees, the poems comment on topics such as body structure, life cycles, roles in the hive, and dance-like communication. Early books in the series simply offered illustrated poetry, while more recent volumes include appended sections with a paragraph of facts related to each poem. Here the facts appear alongside the verse, an arrangement that works well because knowledge enlarges the experience of reading the verse and helps the information stick. Brief lists of recommended books and websites are appended. Although some of the rhyming poems seem humdrum, others express the bees' point of view in a playful way that makes them fun to read aloud or even to memorize. Illustrating each selection is a full-page picture. Created in a style reminiscent of children's art, these collages combine elements such as gouache paint, colored pencils, and printed pieces. A nice mix of wordplay and science.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)