In the Trees, Honey Bees

Click the cover to look inside!

View a short video preview of
In the Trees, Honey Bees
created by the author’s son, Steven!

Author: Lori Mortensen
Illustrator: Cris Arbo

Retail Price: Paperback • $8.95
Web Special: Paperback • $8.05

Here is the ideal introduction for preschoolers and early elementary children to insects that are not only amazing but also critically important to humans. Inside-the-hive views of a wild colony of honey bees offer close-ups of the queen, the cells, even bee eggs. Simple verse will engage a young child, while sidebars with fascinating information satisfy the somewhat older child. Parents, teachers, and interested children will enjoy much more information about both wild and domestic hives in the back of the book. The artist’s detailed style shimmers with life, highlighting each hair or grain of pollen on the bees. A wild hive in a tree in the artist’s own backyard served as a model!

For a fascinating look at Cris Arbo’s way of illustrating, see her commentary at Behind the Scenes with Cris Arbo.

Educators: download free activities based on this book on our activities page.

Book Details

Awards

2010 CBC/NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book
2010 Skipping Stones Honor Award
2010 Mom’s Choice Award (Gold)
2009 Izaak Walton League of America Book of the Year Awards
2009 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award (Silver)
2009 iParenting Media
2012 California Reader’s California Collection Selection (Elementary School)
2011 Abilene Indep. School District Mockingbird Reading Program Selection
2010 Florida Reading Association Children’s Book Award Nominee

Reviews

“Short, simple rhyming words and phrases, printed in large type on realistic illustrations, describe the amazing life cycle of the honeybee. The vibrantly colored scenes center on a beehive hidden in a tree trunk and the grass and gardens surrounding it. Brief paragraphs in a smaller font provide more information about the insect’s depicted activities. Arbo’s incredibly detailed, lifelike close-ups of female worker bees performing the jobs through which they rotate during their short lives greatly enhance the text. Two pages of information about honeybees are appended. . . . A wonderful choice for sharing aloud, Mortensen’s finely crafted book makes a solid addition.”

— School Library Journal (July 2009)

“In the Trees, Honey Bees brings us a close-up look at the lives of honey bees in a nice new oversize paperback edition. Lori Mortensen’s text dances neatly between a very simple rhyming text for younger readers (“Sisters fly / through the sky”) and more in-depth prose notes explaining the science involved. That back-and-forth makes In the Trees, Honey Bees an ideal book for kindergarten and early-elementary schools. Cris Arbo’s big, bright illustrations are in the spirit of fine old botanical prints, lovely . . .”

— Boston Globe – Liz Rosenberg (March 22, 2009)

“Simple rhymes and striking full-bleed illustrations introduce the daily lives of honeybees to very young readers and listeners. Arbo’s detailed paintings show vistas of a bucolic farm visited by oversized honeybees, glorious flowers and close-ups of a hive inside a tree. . . .”

– Kirkus Reviews (March 15, 2009)

[Read more reviews ]