Poetry - Rhymes, Nursery Rhymes & Fingerplays, Bees, Hornets & Wasps

In The Trees, Honeybees!

Name: In The Trees, Honeybees!
Author: Lori Mortensen
ISBN: 9781584691143

by Lori Mortensen

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Overview

This inside-the-hive view of a wild colony of honeybees offers close-up views of the queen, the cells, even bee eggs. The reader is left with admiration for the remarkable lives of honeybees, whether in the hive or in the field.

Synopsis

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3–Short, simple rhyming words and phrases, printed in large type on realistic illustrations, describe the amazing life cycle of the honeybee. The vibrantly colored scenes center on a beehive hidden in a tree trunk and the grass and gardens surrounding it. Brief paragraphs in a smaller font provide more information about the insect’s depicted activities. Arbo’s incredibly detailed, lifelike close-ups of female worker bees performing the “jobs” through which they rotate during their short lives greatly enhance the text. Two pages of information about honeybees are appended. Deborah Heiligman’s Honeybees (National Geographic, 2002), illustrated with simple folk-style gouache paintings, also stresses the many jobs of worker bees. In The Life and Times of the Honeybee (Houghton, 1995), Charles Micucci offers pages filled with tables, charts, and diagrams that overflow with interesting tidbits for readers seeking greater detail. A wonderful choice for sharing aloud, Mortensen’s finely crafted book makes a solid addition.–Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH

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Editorials

School Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

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)