Sneak Peek: Flight of the Honey Bee, by Raymond Huber and Brian Lovelock

Peta Jinnath Andersen is an Online Consultant for Walker Books Australia. Her absolute, forever-and-ever favourite children's books are Guess How Much I Love You, A Bit Lost, Howl's Moving Castle, A Wrinkle in Time, A Monster Calls, and Winnie-the-Pooh. 
 
The cold is coming and Scout is on a daring flight in search of the last flowers of autumn. Scout's mission is very dangerous, but it is also vital, because the flowers provide the precious nectar the hive needs to make honey. Can the hive make enough honey to survive the long winter months?

A new addition to our Nature Storybooks series, Flight of the Honey Bee details Scout’s journey to a meadow. Yet Scout’s story is far from prosaic; in fact, it’s rather poetic, and the dangers she faces are very real to a honey bee.

Scout zigs and zags from flower to flower, spreading pollen around. The pollen clings to her fuzzy body – a sprinkle of sun-powder.

As with all the Nature Storybooks, factual details provide a counterpoint and encourage deeper reading and discussion. At the end, there’s an author’s note, about honey bees, and their status as an endangered species. (There are also classroom notes available for Flight of the Honey Bee.)

But for me, the thing about this book isn’t just how very real Scout’s journey is, or even how it could encourage children and adults alike to learn more about colony collapse disorder and how we can save the bees. It’s that the story is very much a reflection of a child’s day, filled with almost timed phrases for how kindy and primary school kids journey through their own days. There’s leaving home for adventure (and knowing one will return home again); dealing with something difficult (and overcoming it); pausing for breath; telling everyone at home about one’s day; and reflecting (often with a parent) on the day, and how even the difficult parts were worth it.

It’s rare to find a book which is so inextricably tied to events children can relate to while at the same time presenting a story so unlike theirs. It’s something to glory in, that togetherness – and the facts alongside provide a rather lovely set of grace notes. (The illustrations, too, are truly gorgeous. The first one, where “a bee the size of a cherry pip”, sets out, is my favourite.)

Learn more about Nature Storybooks: Flight of the Honey Bee here or learn more about honey bees with our classroom notes.

Raymond Huber lives in Dunedin. He has been a social worker, gardener, primary school teacher, lecturer, and is currently a writer and editor. He's written Science and English textbooks and short stories for children. Sting, his first novel for Walker Books Australia, was short-listed for the NZ Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults, Junior Fiction Category, 2010; and the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, Young Adult Category, 2010; as well as being a Storylines Notable Book, Junior Fiction Category, 2010. (Read more of Ziggy's adventures in the sequel, Wings.)

Brian Lovelock is a scientist working in the power industry in New Zealand. He has painted all his life but has only recently ventured into the world of book illustration. His previous titles with Walker Books Australia include Did My Mother Do That! and Roadworks, which won the Picture Book category in the 2009 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults. Brian was recently long-listed for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Award for his work on Demolition.

Celebrate Easter with a Bilby!

Peta Jinnath Andersen is an Online Consultant for Walker Books Australia. Her absolute, forever-and-ever favourite children's books are Guess How Much I Love You, A Bit Lost, Howl's Moving Castle, A Wrinkle in Time, A Monster Calls, and Winnie-the-Pooh. 

With Easter fast approaching, our thoughts are rapidly turning to chocolate - chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, and, of course, chocolate bilbies! They've been associated with Easter in Australia for a long time, though their popularity really began in the nineties.

For those of us who want a little less sugar this Easter, bilbies are still a lovely way to celebrate.

In Bilby Secrets, one of the books in our non-fiction Nature Storybooks series, author Edel Wignell and illustrator Mark Jackson explore the journey a bilby takes from birth through adulthood. It's a marvellous example of a non-fiction picture book which teaches through story.

A beautiful narrative non-fiction book which follows the life of a bilby, an Australian marsupial. The story depicts a young bilby's birth, habitat, behaviour and diet. When Baby Bilby is born, he's as long as your little toe. He crawls into his mother's warm pouch, where he feeds and grows. Baby Bilby is soon ready to leave the safety of the burrow. He follows his mother closely, sniffs the night air, and hops into the moonlight for his first desert adventure.

Rather than providing readers with a textbook-like list of dry facts, Bilby Secrets introduces a bilby's habits and survival secrets through story; a short factual explanation of why Baby Bilby behaves as he does adds depth to the story, in the same way understanding character motivations add depth to a novel. And facts are presented in easy to relate to ways - "When Baby Bilby is born, he's as long as your little toe".  Whenever I read that line to my son, he looks at his little toe in wonder, trying to imagine a baby that small. Illustrations enhance the story, while also adding a layer of factual detail - what a bilby burrow looks like, the sort of environment a bilby lives in, and more.


One of the things I love about Bilby Secrets and narrative non-fiction picture books in general is how they open up a world of discussion - the fact that a baby bilby is the size of a little toe easily segues to a chat about the size of other baby animals. Are baby kangaroos that small? Are piglets that small? (Yes and no respectively; marsupial babies are little-toe size while placental or eutherian babies are not.) And that discussion leads to another, about marsupials, which may lead to another about mammals and so on and so forth. It's a kind of guided learning, without pressure, that's suited to children of all ages - even one year olds can explore the idea of a bilby with a book such as this, especially when cuddled up with a loved one.

Looking for more narrative non-fiction? Take a look at the rest of our Nature Storybook series, and keep an eye out for Big Red Kangaroo, out later this year.


Credits: Text © 2011 Edel Wignell, Illustrations © 2011 Mark Jackson. All rights reserved.