This photo-essay describes the decline of honeybees since 2004, their importance in pollination and the work of beekeepers, sending a chilling message to the very young. Rotner’s photographs are bright and beautiful: happy children, glorious flowers and luscious fruits. The accompanying text, written in simple sentences, has little narrative flow. It opens with a beekeeper’s discovery of empty hives, goes on to describe the role of pollinators, introduces beekeepers and then returns to label Colony Collapse Disorder on a double-page spread contrasting a full hive with an empty one. A list of questions about the decline of honeybees suggests causes; unidentified scientists are shown working on the problem. On a second spread of empty cells the author asks the bigger question, “How healthy is our earth?” following with pages of suggestions for action, websites for follow up and fast facts. The book concludes with profiles of the individuals who served as sources. Older readers will be well served with Loree Griffin Burns and Ellen Harasimowicz’s The Hive Detectives (2010); this is less successful at meeting its audience’s needs. (Informational picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 31, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2247-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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