Bumble Bees

Children's Literature

Here's your chance to get up close and personal with bumble bees with no worry about the sting! The approach is straightforward: We learn what bumble bees are (insects), what they look like (the size of a jelly bean colored black, yellow, or orange with two antennas and five eyes), and what they do (live in nests in the ground, drink nectar, collect pollen, and take nectar to bees in the nest). Minimal easy text on one page faces a large bright bee picture on the second page of the two-page spreads. Some bees in these full-color photos are as big as my fist. So, with these photographs, you can clearly see the hair on their legs, all five eyes, and their smelling, feeling, hearing antennas. A note in the book reads: "The Bugs, Bugs, Bugs! Set supports national science standards related to the diversity of life and heredity." Twenty-four pages include 123 words, a table of contents, a glossary, book and internet references, and an index. Titles in the "Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!" series include Ants, Butterflies, Crickets, Grasshoppers, and Ladybugs. 2005, Capstone Press/Pebble Plus, Ages 5 to 7.
—Chris Gill