Review: A well informed book which, unfortunately, needs proofreading and a minor edit.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 11, 2014
I was asked to read this book in return for an honest review, and downloaded a free copy from Amazon during a promotion.The book is divided into two parts: The first part is a story told from the perspective of one of the bees. The second part is educational, and draws together information found on the web.There are some words in here that would require an adult to explain for most children who would read this book. The addition of photographs drawn from the web is a nice idea. However, I feel that the first half of the book would benefit greatly from children's illustrations, rather than the small photos which are more suited for the educational part of the book. All of the images appeared tiny on my kindle fire HD 8.5" screen, and would be more effective if they were enlarged.The story aspect has been called an adventure, but nothing out of the ordinary happens to the two young adventurers. It would be more accurate to say that the first half of the book is a story about the life of a bee as told from a bee's perspective.  There are quite a few spelling mistakes, tense confusions and punctuation anomalies for a book this small. Which is a shame, especially as a children's book like this not only teaches about bees and the world around us, but also about our language ... how to read, which leads into how to write. I do not refer to any differences between US and UK spellings here. For example: Once is used instead of One, etc. Commas and question marks are absent; that kind of thing.I highly commend the idea behind the book, and congratulate the author for producing a series of books that are all about educating children about the world around us, and the importance of protecting it. This book discusses death, as it relates to bees, and I feel this was done in a sensitive and gentle manner. It also talks about mating and sperm. It is difficult for me to put an age range on this book. For one, this is outside my area of expertise. Secondly, the story seems to be aimed at quite young readers, yet contains words and topics that require explanation--especially in the educational half. I would have no problem with children in my care, of five years and above, reading this book. Although, be prepared for questions!Due to the above mentioned issues, I offer 3 out of 5 stars for this book.