Bee & Me

by Alison Jay, Alison Jay (Illustrator)

Overview

A beautiful wordless picture book brings a personal note to the plight of the honeybee and offers a message of hope.

A little girl befriends a bee that takes her on a journey of discovery, revealing an action that every child can take to aid in conservation. In a wordless story told through enchanting illustrations, Bee & Me tells a tale of friendship and offers an introduction to the ecology of the natural world. Alison Jay's original artwork brings the story gently to life, pointing out the sadness of a world without bees. An afterword makes clear to readers the important role these endangered insects play.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763690106
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/14/2017
Series:	Old Barn Books
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.90(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Alison Jay is the acclaimed illustrator of numerous picture books. She lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

Jay's oil paintings are soft and delicate, offering delight in the details...A sweet bee idyll.
—Kirkus Reviews

The artwork, rendered softly in oils, favors sunny earth tones and makes good use of multiple perspectives and graphic-novel conventions...this story offers much to admire and appreciate.
—Booklist

This is a wonderful story of friendship that will invite many varied retellings. It also contains helpful back matter about the importance of bees and how to attract and protect them.
—School Library Journal

Jay mixes soaring spreads, smaller panels, and kicky spot images to clearly convey the story visually...A closing note points to the plight of the dwindling honeybee population and suggests plants that readers can grow to help bee populations.
—Publishers Weekly Online

Alison Jay’s pictures for “Bee and Me” have the same softness and delicacy as the bumblebee that zooms into a girl’s bedroom high above city streets.
—The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

2017-01-17
A little girl befriends a lost bumblebee in this wordless picture book.The scene opens on a bustling and ever-so-slightly surreal urban landscape; muted taupes and peaches give it a friendly if sterile look. A little white girl sits in a high-rise apartment reading a book on flowers when a large bee flies in her open window. In an eight-panel sequence, she fetches a fly swatter, causing the bee to back up against a windowsill, four whisper-thin legs held up in surrender, its two wide eyes visually echoing its dismayed O of a mouth. After consulting a book called Bee Culture, she prepares it a solution of sugar water, which the bee sips delicately from a spoon. She lets it go, but it returns, comically bedraggled, on a rainy day, and the friendship is cemented. The bee grows and grows until it's big enough for her to ride, its human facial features and fuzzy, brown-and-yellow-striped body anything but threatening. (A stinger is conspicuously absent.) Together they fly to the countryside, harvest seeds, and sprinkle them in the city so that the next spring, it's all abloom. Jay's oil paintings are soft and delicate, offering delight in the details. Even as the girl bonds with the bee, she also befriends a little brown-skinned boy in the apartment above. A page of bee facts concludes the book, with a focus on pollinator-friendly plants for readers to plant to encourage bees in their own environments. A sweet bee idyll. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews