Let's Be Bees

by Shawn Harris

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Bring on the giggles with Let's Be Bees, a playful, hilarious and transportive read-aloud that is sure to become a bedtime favorite.

Father and child become buzzing bees, rustling trees, and more in this delightful make-believe romp from Caldecott Honor winner Shawn Harris.

The only thing better than playing make believe is playing make believe with your favorite grown-up! Especially when that grown-up’s imagination is as big as yours, and you both get to make all kinds of funny sounds.

Fans of Shawn Harris’s Caldecott Honor-winning debut Have You Ever Seen a Flower? and illustrations in the Newbery Medal-winning The Eyes and the Impossible will find a new instant favorite in Let’s Be Bees. With bright, bold crayon illustrations, lilting, rhythmic words, and endless fodder for playing along, this is a read aloud guaranteed to bring on the giggles and requests to do it all again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823457090
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	02/11/2025
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Shawn Harris is an award-winning creator of books for kids. He received a Caldecott Honor for his debut authored book Have You Ever Seen a Flower, which the New York Times called a “stunning tour de force.” His work as an illustrator includes What Can a Citizen Do?, Her Right Foot, and the Newbery Medal-winning bestseller The Eyes and the Impossible, all written by Dave Eggers; A Polar Bear in the Snow by Mac Barnett; and Everyone’s Awake by Colin Meloy, among others. He lives in Northern California, where he also writes songs, surfs, and plays racquetball.

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/11/2024

In this sound-centric account of a riotous readaloud session from Caldecott Honoree Harris, a bearded caregiver in a blue top holds one side of a book while a child in a yellow shirt grasps the other. “Let’s be bees,” reads text on the first spread’s verso. On the recto, the caregiver urges the child via speech balloon: “LET’S BUZZ.” A page turn later, the duo’s clothes suddenly appear empty—the sitting humans have turned into hovering bees: “BUZZ!” Soon, “Let’s be birds” again transforms the figures (“CHIRP!”), and the conceit gains momentum as the two turn into trees (“RUSTLE!”), weather (“THUNDER!”), and more. Simple figures outlined in energetic black crayon burst with energy as the calls of many animals next emerge across spreads (“Let’s RATTLE”; “Let’s CROW”). At the end, the light-brown-skinned adult and child mimic each other (“Let’s be me... let’s be you”) by way of wrapping up this endearing celebration of voice and noise. In a sly, self-referential twist, the book the pair is reading—Let’s Be Bees—invites the audience into mimicry not just of the natural world but of the characters themselves. Ages 4–8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

It’s telling that the title of this deceptively simple book by Harris, a Caldecott Medal honoree, doesn’t try to cram in the word “pretend.” The father and son in this book aren’t pretending: They are embodying. During imaginative play, the pair fully transform — becoming bees, yes, but also trees, weather and a whole host of animals. Sometimes love is best expressed in shared silliness. Bright crayon illustrations add softness and humor.
—The New York Times

Harris’ ability to connect with children on their own level, while also being unafraid to get a little weird in the process, brings to mind such superb titles as Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd’s Goodnight Moon.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In a sly, self-referential twist, the book the pair is reading—Let’s Be Bees—invites the audience into mimicry not just of the natural world but of the characters themselves.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Acclaimed authorillustrator and Caldecott Honor winner Harris pairs his simple, lyrical text with bright, vibrant colors in bold, childlike crayon strokes, with softly rounded shapes sustaining the cozy, endearing vibe. Certain to inspire further imaginative explorations with its playful, participatory fun, this joyful celebration of shared make-believe conjures endless possibilities for whimsical delight, inviting readers to return “again! again!
—Booklist (starred review)

Readers of Shawn Harris's Caldecott Honor-winning Have You Ever Seen a Flower? have every reason to hope for another effervescent, imagination-stoking fantasia, and that's precisely what they get with Let's Be Bees, a picture book full of noises that isn't really a book about noises.
—Shelf Awareness

Bold, comical crayon illustrations set the tone for a boisterous game of pretend and its noisy cacophony of sounds.
—The Horn Book

From the Publisher

★ 2024-11-09
A caregiver and little one find themselves transforming.

In Harris’ appealingly thick-lined, childlike illustrations, the brown-skinned parent and youngster hold a book between them (tellingly namedLet’s Be Bees) as the adult says invitingly, “Let’s buzz.” Next thing you know, the two have cast aside their restrictive human shapes and are buzzing through the air together as a pair of bees. The duo appear as birds on another spread; the parent urges, “Let’s chirp.” What follows is a series of animals, objects, and even concepts (at one point, the two become “the Earth” and decide to “make every sound”). It all comes to a satisfying finish when both characters transform into the parent (the child sports a mustache and beard) and then into the kid (the adult looks especially ridiculous with a comparatively small head atop a muscular body). The narrative concludes with both eager to do it all “AGAIN!” Through a simplicity that can be difficult to capture so well on the page, this tale models marvelous parental playtime behavior, even suggesting how adults might read this very story with small children. Each page is filled with different ways of making fun sounds. Harris’ ability to connect with children on their own level, while also being unafraid to get a little weird in the process, brings to mind such superb titles as Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd’sGoodnight Moon.

Let’s be readers and explore this book together—again and again.(Picture book. 2-5)

Kirkus Reviews