August 27, 2020

THE THING ABOUT BEES

The Thing About Bees: A Love Letter by Shabazz Larkin is a poetic ode to familial love and bees.
 

Framed around a father talking to his two sons about the importance of bees as pollinators, this book is truly a love letter to nature and family. The narrator acknowledges that sometimes bees can be kind of rude, like buzzing around or walking on your food or even the ultimate evil of stinging you, but they never mean any harm and they should be loved because of their contribution to the world. The father then likens these characteristics to his own children's actions, reminding them that they can be annoying too, but he loves them anyway because he sees how they contribute to the larger picture of his own world.


Larkin was inspired by Normal Rockwell's painting style for this book, and it certainly shows. Every scene is full of color layered upon color. A red kite isn't just red, it's mixed with oranges and purples and grays, all of which are then carefully and sparingly utilized elsewhere in the background to make each part of the illustration pop off the page. The back matter is also very well-designed, with both imagery and handwritten fonts with facts about different kinds of bees and ways to avoid being stung.


The Thing About Bees: A Love Letter published last year from Readers to Eaters. 



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