excited
I had the pleasure of chairing a session on nonfiction at last year's NCTE conference. Tanya Lee Stone, Jenny Moss, Loree Griffin Burns and Kate Messner were fantastic: informative and entertaining. So, I knew I would love THE HIVE DETECTIVES; CHRONICLE OF A HONEY BEE CATASTROPHE even though I am not a fan of the bees at all (Houghton Mifflin 2010). Part of the "Scientists in the Field" series, this is an absorbing look not just at the role of the bee in pollination and crop production, nor just an inside look at the hive (though we do get both of those). Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is part of the focus of this book. The design is perfect: interspersed between chapters are marvelous double page spreads that call attention to things such as bee anatomy, hive construction, etc. The text is engaging, and the photographs by Ellen Harasimowicz place readers squarely in the middle of the action. <327>
And I just love the bee that flits from page to page, too...