Review by Booklist Review
Buzzing, industrious honeybees inspire the recurring metaphors in Nye's collection of poems about communication, connection, change, and resilience. Ranging in form from tight, economical lines to long narrative passages, the poems shift in mood and tone. One exhausted speaker asks, Why do we have to go so many places? / What pollen are we gathering, anyway? Another has an answer: Drinking it in. That's when we really live. Dipping and diving down into the nectar of scenes. Tasting, savoring, and collecting sweetness. Many poems speak of adult experiences, such as watching a child leave the nest, but teens will find relevant notes on each page, and many will enjoy Nye's political commentary, which appears in several selections. Filled with signs of warning and hope, the poems sing with an almost ecstatic appreciation for nature and for connection with other people; Nye never overworks her theme, always employing her bee imagery in unusual, whimsical ways that invite consideration of the mysteries of our own human hive.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-Bees, Nye contends, could clearly teach us humans a thing or two. Though the insects themselves do not appear in all of this collection's 82 pieces (poems are interspersed with short prose pieces), their spirit does. The anthology is a rallying cry, a call for us to rediscover such beelike traits as interconnectedness, strong community, and honest communication. Readers are told that as humans they are at their best when "dipping and diving into the nectar of scenes. Tasting, savoring, and collecting sweetness." Though the poems are obviously told from a distinctively adult vantage point, teens at the very start of their questioning years will recognize their own angst in Nye's sense of irony, their idealistic optimism in her simple wonder. In the hands of a less talented poet, the extended bee analogy could have easily felt awkwardly imposed on such thorny issues as environmentalism, religious intolerance, political leadership, and the casualties of war. Luckily, Honeybee flows from the pen of a master, who has once again created a gem of a collection.-Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Middle School) In her introduction, Nye talks about the recent mysterious disappearances of honeybees across the country; the constant rushing-around, "busy bee" climate of American society; and the importance of "dipping and diving down into the nectar of scenes" and sweet moments. The eighty-two poems and prose paragraphs that follow cover Nye's familiar, distinctive territory -- prejudice, kindness, war, peace, Arab Americans. In some but not all of the poems, bee-related words (nectar, hover, stung), bee facts, and bees themselves buzz in and out. In "Someone You Will Not Meet," a girl trapped at home ("the radio say[s] there will be / more fighting") sees "streams of bees swooping / ...They dip into blossoms and fly away. / Never could she have imagined being jealous / of a bee." "Girls, Girls" tells us that "during winter, bees lock legs / and beat wings fast to stay warm. / ...All the worker bees are female. / Why is that no surprise?" In these poems about community and communication, readers will sense the connections, and disconnections, between humans and honeybees without feeling they're being preached at. The mix of short poems and paragraphs will attract kids who haven't read a lot of poetry, along with those who have -- and any kid familiar with the classroom-friendly William Carlos Williams poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" will get a buzz spotting the allusion to it in the title poem. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
