Category: books

Explore the secret world of bees: how they live, how they work, how they support each other and their hive.

About The Bee Book

DK’s The Bee Book is a wonderful introduction to the humble honeybee: nature’s hardest worker, and much more than just a provider of honey! Bees are incredibly industrious, brilliant at building, super social, and-most importantly-responsible for a third of every mouthful of food you eat! Find out how bees talk to one another, what it takes to become a queen bee, what the life of a worker bee is like, and more. The contents include bee anatomy, types of bee, hives, colonies, pollination, making honey, and more. Discover just how much they matter, why they are declining, and what you can do to help!

Our Thoughts

Bees have been a hot topic for the last year or so, and rightly so. These insects are so very important to our everyday lives and we should do everything we can to help them.

The Bee Book starts off with a background about bees, I had no idea there were around 20,000 different species of bees! We learned about the Wallace’s Giant Bee, Dwarf Bee and Killer Bees, which prompted us to look them up online (especially Killer Bees – I always thought this was a made up story to scare kids!).

From here the story dives right into the incredible honeybees, the bees you are most likely to be familiar with. We begin to discover what is a honeybee, body parts (including that famous stinger), why they buzz, and how bees make honey. We really enjoyed reading about the worker honeybee’s life (from birth to everyday life), the Queen bee and how honeybees talk to each other.

But why are bees so important?

“1 in 3 mouthfuls of food that you eat has been made thanks to pollinators such as bees” – The Bee Book.

As we learn about the important process of pollination, quotes like the one above really help kids put into perspective how important bees are. Charlotte helps kids break down all the important steps after pollination – from crop collection, to transportation of crops, to grocery stores and finally to our table. This is important for kids (and adults) to understand why we have to help the bees. She even gives great examples on how we can help bees, from which plants to plant outside to even bee hotels.

This is a wonderfully written and illustrated book about bees that teaches kids all about the importance of honeybees and how we can help them.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon and Indigo.

About the Author

London-based author and illustrator, Charlotte Milner has a strong interest in bees and a natural flair for illustrated storytelling.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Learn all about those animals that were given a bad name in The (Not) Bad Animals – a perfect book for kids and adults alike.

About The (Not) Bad Animals

We all have a certain creature that makes our skin scrawl and give us the ‘heebie jeebies’. Spiders that make us scream, mice that make us jump on top of furniture until the coast is clear, or bats that make us shudder at the thought of them flapping around our hair. There are creatures big and small all over the world that make us squirm and wriggle in our seats just at the mere thought of them.

But what did these animals ever do to deserve such a bad reputation? Most of the time it’s humans that have labelled them ugly, dangerous and downright gross. But it’s one false acquisition too many for these little guys. They’ve had enough of being called scary, slimy, nasty and ewwy. They’re here to dispel these false acquisitions and set the record straight once and for all!

With laugh-out-loud illustrations from the immensely talented Sophie Corrigan, uncover the truth behind the animal and learn all about how each creature plays an important role in our world. With bitesize text that will leave you giggling and a fact box about each misrepresented creature, this is the perfect introduction to over 30 critters big and small who really aren’t all that bad at all!

Our Thoughts

This book contains many of the creatures that make my skin crawl – from spiders and ants, to mice and slugs and centipedes! The book examines common misconceptions of those animals that have gained an undeserved bad reputation and why they are really good.

There were quite a few animals that I expected to see on their list but quite a few I didn’t think of like pigeons, pigs and snapping turtles. I loved the tone of this book – it is written as though the animals were telling the story (which is super cute). They tell their tale, the common misconceptions about them and tell you why you shouldn’t believe those rumours.

Each animal has four pages devoted to it – the first two explore the common misconceptions people have about them and the second two pages give the animal viewpoint about why none of that is true. I was actually surprised at how many of the misconceptions I had heard before but maybe did not pay too much attention to or assumed it was true. I was even more surprised as we turned the page to see the truth. One that I was not aware of was that hyenas actually catch 50% of their own meals! I had no idea, I thought they only scavenged for their food.

The illustrations are spot on, I loved how the first two pages show the animals how we picture them (creepy, mean, and scary) and in the next two the animals are kind, sweet and show a truer representation of them. I could almost feel bad for the mouse (okay I did, they made them look so cute!).

The (Not) Bad Animals is a fun book to read with your child as you work through some common misconceptions and maybe talk about your own fears with your child. The book is a bit longer so we would read about a few animals at a time and then talked about how we felt about those animals and our own fears.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

About the Author

Sophie Corrigan is a full-time freelance illustrator based in the UK. She graduated from University of Central Lancashire in 2013 with a first class degree in Illustration, and has recently completed a Masters degree in Children’s Book Illustration, for which she received a Distinction.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

In case you needed a reminder – check out these 50 reasons to love animals!

About 50 Reasons to Love Animals

Discover 50 reasons to love animals! Lions have magnificent shaggy manes, penguins go tobogganing on their tummies, bears wiggle and dance as they scratch, whales sing songs, and elephants can feel sadness. But all the animals in this book especially need our love – now more than ever. Learn about their habitats, what makes them special, and show them you care with simple activities you can do at home.

Our Thoughts

We love animals in our home – from taking care of our own dogs to learning about new animals and experiencing rescue shelters on our trip to Botswana. Animals are a huge part of our life and we all should do everything we can to protect these beautiful creatures.

50 Reasons to Love Animals looks at six habitats and the animals that call it home. We look at the dry savanna, the coral reef, icy poles, evergreen forests, the open ocean and tropical forests. The book gives a brief overview over several pages of the habitat and the animals that live there. Each two page spread contains roughly three featured animals of that habitat and an interesting fact about them. I have to admit, I learned some pretty cool facts about animals from this book (I never knew that hippos released their own fluid to help protect their skin from the sun!). You can also find suggestions on how to protect and show your love for a particular animal throughout the book.

50 Reasons to Love animals is a wonderfully illustrated and easy to read book for young children. The illustrations are lovely and capture the innocence of the animals perfectly (I personally loved the eyes the most on each animal, they just drew me right in). The book itself is easy to read with your child and encourages you to do more research and help give back. You have suggestions on how to show your love for these animals that are easy to accomplish for a child, for example creating a list of ways that your child can help fight climate change at home. The book flows nicely and has the right amount of text to illustration to capture a child’s attention and interest.

This is a beautiful book for a child that loves animals, who wants to learn more and is passionate about protecting our animals and environment.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

About the Author

Catherine Barr studied Ecology at Leeds University and trained as a journalist. She worked at Greenpeace International for seven years as a wildlife and forestry campaigner and has a long-running interest in environmental issues. While working as an editor at the Natural History Museum, she researched and wrote two major summer exhibitions: Dinosaurs of the Gobi Desert and Myths and Monsters. She is now a partner in communications company bwa design. She lives on a hill near Hay-on-Wye in Herefordshire with her partner and two daughters. She is a proud Patron of Reading for a local school, and mother of two teenage girls. Catherine’s first book, The Story of Life, was shortlisted for The English Association Picture Book Award.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.