Tag: bee books

WINTER WORLD, The Ingenuity of Animal Survival
by Bernd Heinrich
HarperCollins, 2003

Category: Non-fiction for grown-ups

I had planned to read WINTER WORLD over the winter (of course!) but not much goes according to plan around here. And so I found myself enjoying some strange stolen moments in a hammock this past weekend, soaking in a New England spring and a New England winter at the same time …

WINTER WORLD is a meander through the Maine woods in the cold months, guided by biologist and naturalist Bernd Heinrich, and with special attention paid to animals and how they adapt to survive the elements. There were chapters on some of my favorite insects, including ladybugs, butterflies, and honey bees. As is the case with the best nature non-fiction, this book inspired me to get outside and look around. Too much of my outdoor time is spend doing things (exercising, gardening, lying in a hammock and reading!); I forget to stop and SEE.

My favorite quote came from the chapter in which the author admonishes the line of thinking that forbids people from touching butterflies:

 

The official response of “protecting” these animals by making it illegal for curious kids to handle or collect them assumes that everyone wants to do it. By that logic one could just as well make it illegal to not handle wildlife, because some get enlightened by contact with it. Personally, I think that this is ultimately more useful than everyone being distanced from it. Contact should be encouraged.

 

Hear, hear! Every human should be allowed (required?) to gently clutch a butterfly in his (or her) grasp, watch it taste his skin with its feet, and wonder as it flits away where is it going? when will it be back?

© Ellen Harasimowicz

 

THE BACKYARD BEEKEEPER’S HONEY HANDBOOK
by Kim Flottum
Quarry Books, 2009

[Honey] is a complex, complicated, truly unique work of botany, biology, science, art, and possibly God.

I’m back home in Massachusetts and just about resettled at my desk. In addition to unpacking and writing thank you notes to new friends in Maine, I’ve been spending some time in the kitchen. There is nothing like a week of eating on the road to make you crave a little home-cooked comfort food. And there is nothing like reading THE BACKYARD BEEKEEPER’S HONEY HANDBOOK book to make you crave a little home-cooked honey-flavored comfort food. Like these Honey Pot Cookies:

Can you say yummy? We Burnses heartily approve of this book and its honey recipes!

Okay. Enough cooking and eating. And blogging. I’ve got some writing to do …

 

CLAN APIS
By Jay Hosler, Ph.D.
Active Synapse, 2000

Category: Graphic Novel

I’m still working, working, working on THE HIVE DETECTIVES manuscript. At this stage—the end of the ‘first complete draft’ stage—I am mostly polishing and refining with snippets of fresh writing thrown in as needed.

I’m also still reviewing the cool bee stuff (books, videos, websites, etc) I’ve noted during the last eighteen months … with an eye toward useful materials to include in the book’s back matter. Some of what I have collected is interesting to me, like this website of honey recipes, but won’t be particularly interesting to my middle grade readers.

Other things on my list, however, are so freakin’ cool that I plan to include them in the backmatter AND to shout about them at every opportunity. Jay Hosler’s CLAN APIS falls into this latter category.

CLAN APIS is a graphic novel about honey bees. I know. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect myself. But let me tell you … this is a a totally fun and scientifically accurate graphic novel introduction to the world of the honey bee. I kid you not. It is a honey bee must read.

Hosler is a neurobiologist at Juniata College, where he studies—you guessed it—honey bees. In his spare time he cartoons, mostly about sciencey stuff. Can’t remember the last sciencey cartoon you came across? Then check out Killer Bee, Hosler’s cartoon look at the life-or-death struggle of one honey bee scientist. It’s a gem.

Hosler has also explored Darwin’s theory of natural selection in comic book form. Do I even need to tell you that THE SANDWALK ADVENTURES is now at the tippy-top of my wish list?

Science rocks! As do scientists who share their work with the world in unexpected and completely effective ways.

 

HONEYBEE
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Greenwillow Books, 2008

Category: Poetry

How could I not pick up this book? A little honeybee buzz, a little reviewer buzz (Richie Partington’s review), a little cover buzz (a la Chris Raschka); not even my fear of poetry could keep me from reading HONEYBEE.

I was surprised to find in it a collection of poems and paragraphs that are as much about the curious way we humans live as they are about honeybees:

There is a poem about unacceptable contradictions, as in

“George W. Bush believes
In a ‘culture of life’.

This is very interesting to those
Who have recently died
Because of his decisions.”

And there is a poem about the joy and guilt that is motherhood, as in

“Take your laundry baskets, your first-aid kit,
But don’t take my failings, okay? Forget the times
I snapped, or had no patience, okay?”

The piece I can’t shake is the one called “We Are The People”.

“I know people who, the minute they get into their homes, tell you where they are going next.”

Nye goes on to tell of the evening she decided to slow down, take in a sunset from her front porch. A neighbor, out walking the dog, stopped to ask if she was locked out of the house.

“So ask yourself, you swirling tornado of a human being, in a world of disoriented honeybees, do you want to look locked out the minute you sit down?”

No. I most definitely do not.

 

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES
By Sue Monk Kidd
Penguin, 2002

Catgeory: Adult Novel

I might be the last person on Earth to read this book. And I didn’t even read it, I listened to it on CD. But it is so very good that I have to sing its praises here. Better late than never, you know?

First, a word on audiobooks. Listening to the marvelous Jenna Lamia read THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES has won me over completely. While I will always prefer curling ‘round a book and experiencing it wholly, I discovered that listening has its own appeal. I was amazed at Ms. Lamia’s ability to inhabit characters by voice alone, and at how comforting it was to be read to.

As for story, I was swept away. Fourteen-year-old Lily Evans journeys so very far in this book. She overcomes grief and guilt, she lets go of ignorance, she embraces family in the strange form it finally comes to her. By the end of the story, I loved Lily Evans, and I hated to see her go. And then, just this morning, I learned I can look forward to seeing her again, this time on the silver screen. THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES movie will be released on October 17, 2008. Just look at this cast:

Lily is played by Dakota Fanning;
Rosaleen is played by Jennifer Hudson;
August is played by Queen Latifah;
June is played by Alicia Keys;
May is played by Sophie Okonedo.

I can hardly wait.

A final word … on bees, of course. (Duh!) I was struck by how subtly the author instilled her novel with ‘bee love’, the comfortable feeling–familiar to those with a passion for raising bees–that comes from being close enough to see and smell and hear and taste and touch the hive. It added so much to the story.

 

THE QUEEN MUST DIE
By William Longgood
Illustrations by Pamela Johnson
Norton, 1985

Category: Adult Nonfiction

THE QUEEN MUST DIE is an extraordinarily thorough look at the honeybee—from winter to fall, from inside the hive and out, from egg stage to working (or loafing, in the case of the “lazy, stupid, fat and greedy” drones) adult, from nurse bee to forager bee, from abdomen to antennae, from Aristotle to modern writers. Amazingly, the author manages this depth and breadth in entertaining and highly-readable prose. Well done!

Longgood admits in the Preface that he is prone to anthropomorphism, and he does attribute to his bees a surprising array of human-like thoughts and feelings. There was a time this would have bothered me. But that was before I dove into this book project, before I spent time working bees, before I enrolled in Bee School (seriously!), before I began dreaming of hives of my own. These experiences have made me more forgiving, and I find myself very open to Longgood’s wider message: there is mystery, even poetry, in the life of a honeybee … and we humans would do good to stop, ponder, and read about it every now and again.

 

POLLINATION
By Mary Hoff
(Creative Education, 2004)

Category: Elementary Nonfiction

When you study honeybees, you study pollination. There is just no way around it. And so when I came across a book on the subject for elementary readers, I had to check it out.

POLLINATION is one of twelve titles in Creative Education’s ‘World of Wonder’ series, and although it is the only one I have seen, I liked it enough to want to see the others. Straightforward text and breathtaking images combine to make a lovely whole, and the final (beautiful!) product has got the goods: readers learn what pollination is, why it is important, and how it happens.

 

FOLLOWING THE BLOOM
By Douglas Whynott
Stackpole Books, 1991

Category: Nonfiction for Grown-ups

I’m still neck-deep in bees … and will be for a while. THE HIVE DETECTIVES, my next “Scientists in the Field” book, won’t be published until Spring 2010. That’s right, dear blog reader, there are literally years of bee books ahead of us. Buckle up.

FOLLOWING THE BLOOM is a literary road trip: Across America with the Migratory Beekeepers. In it, Whynott introduces readers to a cadre of quirky and irresistible people—almost exclusively men—who spend their lives amongst bees. They keep bees in hives, truck them across state lines, rent them to commercial growers for pollination purposes, wax poetic about their indispensability, collect and sell their honey. The beekeepers I met in Whynott’s book, like those I have met in person, are passionate, fascinating, and a bit out there. Stepping into their world is thrilling; being a bit out there myself, I find I fit right in.