Monday, January 25, 2021

Celebrating Nature: Two of Our Favorite 2020 Nature Books

 
I take the opinions of my young readers very seriously, and I have come to really respect what they have to say about the books that we share with each other. This past year, because they are a little older and we were stuck in pandemic conditions and that meant no field trips to the park, we have read more nonfiction than usual, focusing mainly on books about nature. Two of our favorites were about honeybees and otters.

Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Melllifera 
by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Eric Rohmann
Holiday House/Neal Porter Books, 2020, 40 pages

I have to admit that while I enjoy watching the bees in the garden go about their work gathering nectar, last summer I realized that I really didn't know much about the rest of a bee's life. Turns out, it is a pretty fascinating life, and presented in more than life size in Honeybee. Even before the reader gets to the title page, Apis Mellifera, Apis for short, squirms, pushes and chews her way out of a solitary cell in the hive, eats her fill from a nearby cell, and then begins her brief but busy life of the worker honeybee. For the first 18 days of her life, Apis remains in the hive doing all kinds of chores. First, there is cleaning up the hive nursery for future eggs, followed by queen tending, comb building, and food handling. On day 18 of her life, Apis has guard duty, protecting the hive against birds, bears, and other bees. Finally, on day 25, Apis is ready to fly and begins visiting flowers, sometimes miles and miles away from the home, collecting their nectar and returning to the hive with her honey. Then, Apis does a little dance that tells the other bees where she found her honey before heading out again, sometimes as often as nine times a day. As the days go by, Apis gets thinner and slower, until one day, she just drops to the ground and dies. And back at the nest, a new Apis emerges. I've read this book so many times to some of my young readers and judging by their reception of it, I would say that this is one of the most accessible picture books about bees I've ever read. It is written in straightforward, relatively simple free-verse text covering all stages and jobs of a honeybees life in much more depth than I've indicated here. I'm impressed at how much I learned about bees while reading it to my kids. The up-close-and-personal oil painted illustrations, done in shades of brown, black, and yellow, really capture even the smallest details of a honeybee and the hive. Back matter includes an illustration of the anatomy of a bee with informative labels, suggestions for helping out honeybees, and a short bibliography. This is an informative, well-done STEM book for science classes and for helping to make aware of the importance of bees in our lives, even as hive collapse is occurring. 

If You Take Away the Otter by Susannah Buhrman-Deever, 
illustrated by Matthew Trueman
Candlewick Press, 2020, 32 pages

Sea otters are often the star of picture books about sea animals, perhaps because they are have such sweet faces and seem so playful and friendly. But the sea otter actually plays a key role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem off the Pacific coast of North America. As Susannah Buhrman-Deever explains, there large forests of kelp growing there, providing a home for abalones, clams, sea stars, octopuses and other sea creatures, among them the spiny sea urchin, the enemy and potential destroyer of the kelp forest. Luckily, the otter is a hungry hunter, diving deep into the sea to eat whatever he finds in the kelp, including the sea urchin, maintaining the delicate balance needed for the kelp to thrive. But what if the sea otter disappeared? What would happen to this important ecosystem? At one time, the sea otter was hunted for its thick fur until they almost all gone. When that happened, the spiny sea urchin ate the kelp, causing the underwater forest to collapse. Once the kelp was gone, the other sea creatures no longer had a safe place for their eggs and babies. Fortunately, in 1911, laws were passed to protect the otter from hunters. As the otter population increased, slowly new kelp forests began to grow, providing homes for sea creatures and food for the otters. Buhrman-Deever brilliantly presents this example of the negative impact the loss of one keystone animal can have on the environment in which it lives. It is written on two levels - one in large type gives the basic story, while more detailed facts are presented in smaller type. The kids I shared this book with are young so we stuck to the basic type, and I think because the otters had a happy ending, it generated lots of conversation (more than had the ending be otherwise). The mixed-media illustrations are done in various bright to darker shades of aquamarine depending on the health of the kelp forest. Back matter included more information about kelp forests and otters, a select Bibliography and a list of books and websites for further investigation. This is another excellent informative STEM book for studies on ecosystems and the environment. 

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