Dancing with bees A journey back to nature

Review by Choice Review

This autobiographical memoir by a grassroots environmentalist and "green lifestyle" advocate is set in a small semi-rural community of England, where the author undergoes personal changes in adult life and becomes a self-taught naturalist. Strawbridge Howard describes how she overcame her lack of scientific background and embraced the discipline of natural observation with enthusiasm, in response to a reawakening of childhood ambition. Indeed, in narrating her subsequent experiences of particular observations she reveals an almost childlike perception. As the story unfolds the author gradually becomes increasingly enamored of all sorts of bees and spends countless hours observing them. Also described is her newly acquired understanding of biological taxonomy and information seeking. Personal life experiences, such as the death of the author's mother, are also interwoven in the story. Two chapters are devoted to a trip to Scotland in search of the rare great yellow bumblebee. Explanation about the drastic decline in numbers of bees resulting from pesticide use and climate change alternates with highly introspective accounts of specific sounds made by bees. Although this book is highly personal, often resembling a diary, the reader is bound to learn much about bees, and will not be bored by the knowledge. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Francis W. Yow, emeritus, Kenyon College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

There are about 20,000 different bee species on our planet. In naturalist and bee advocate Strawbridge Howard's informative and entertaining book, we learn that honeybees are not the only kind of bees pollinating flowers and trees. There are also several varieties of solitary bees making homes for their offspring in the ground, spaces between stone and wood, even in empty snail shells. Throughout this engaging, richly descriptive tale of natural discovery, the reader feels as if she is learning alongside the author. In chapters titled Seeking the Great Yellow Bumblebee, Strawbridge Howard takes readers on a magical mystery tour to the remaining vastness of the Caledonian Forest of Scotland, an ancient old-growth stand mostly of Scots pine. As she searches for bees, she notes that wild boar, Eurasian lynx, brown bears, and even gray wolves once roamed beneath the shadows of these trees. When the distinguished great yellow bumblebee is eventually spotted, we share the author's delight. Towards the end of this winsome book she writes, I have been blessed with the ability to see miracles in everything around me. The reader will feel the same.--Raúl Niño Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

Stunned to realize she knows more about the French Revolution than the natural world around her, Howard resolves to rectify the situation by specializing in the study of bees. In her home garden, at her allotment, and in different wild areas of Great Britain, including the Outer Hebrides, the author observes the mating, nesting, and foraging behaviors of her favorites--bumblebees and solitary bees. She expands on her knowledge by using identification guides, reading books and scientific papers, and consulting bee experts, sharing here her observations about their lives, ecology, and the plants that attract them in this fascinating and wide-ranging exploration of nature in Great Britain. Interwoven throughout is information about Howard's life, plants, other pollinators, and birds, as Howard expertly advocates for bees. VERDICT This satisfying memoir of a woman's reawakening to the importance of nature in her life will appeal to fans of natural history memoirs, bees, the natural world, or ecology, as well as those who enjoyed Dave Goulson's A Sting in the Tale and Meredith May's The Honey Bus.--Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove, IL

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A British naturalist offers crisp essays on her relationship with bees.In her debut book, Howard, a devoted bee advocate, pens a lengthy, knowledgeable, and occasionally poetic tribute to honeybees, bumblebees, and other buzzy creatures. She pays attention to the much-publicized, recent dearth of bees but also focuses much of her attention on bees' role in natureto pollinate flowers, plants, and trees. As she notes, the author's husband is a professional beekeeper, but this book is a personal journey about Howard falling in love with bees while in her 40s. The narrative is frequently eye-opening and profound, marked by the author's dry wit and graceful writing. "As my interest in bees has grown," she writes, "so has my awareness of everything that surrounds them or connects them to the web of life they exist within. I feel as though I have embarked on a never-ending journey, a journey that spirals continuously outwards, gathering momentum and taking on a life of its own as it sweeps up all the wondrous, wild things that fly, swim, walk, or crawl in its wake.If I could draw the route of my journey, I suspect it might look a little like a spider's web, dotted here and there with treasures." Howard also provides a nice balance between the very real science of studying bees and their function in nature and her cleareyed and eloquent observations about the natural world. Because of that balance, what might have sounded like a dry lecture turns into something far more interesting. Whether she's explaining how different bee species are classified, describing her mother's deteriorating health (and eventual death), or simply ruminating on the beauty around her, Howard creates a text that is compelling and worth your time even if you're not a fellow bee advocate.An eloquent love letter to bees. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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PREFACE: REALISATIONS I was quite shocked the day I realised I knew more about the French Revolution than I did about our native trees. The thought stopped me, quite literally, in my tracks. I was in my early forties at the time, and remember thinking, in my state of shock, that I was lamentably no more aware of life outside the bubble that was my world than the inner-city children I'd read about who don't know that milk comes from a cow, or that an acorn grows into an oak tree. In fact, it wasn't quite that bad, but I was alarmed nevertheless that I could not confidently name more than half a dozen of the trees I had just walked past on my way to work. What about the rest? Which was which? I tried frantically to remember the names of all the trees I did know, working my way mentally through the alphabet from 'ash' to 'yew' and attempting to visualise the bark, twigs, and leaves of any of them. It was a sobering exercise. The shock for me was not so much that I was unable to name the trees, as you don't need to know the given name of something to love and appreciate it. Rather, I was shaken by the fact that I had stopped noticing them. And it wasn't just the trees I'd stopped noticing. My three-times-weekly walk to work took me up and over the Malvern Hills from West Malvern to Great Malvern, along well-trodden paths edged with wild flowers; past large expanses of tussocky grass, bare ground, and low-growing shrubs; through areas of sparse vegetation amongst ancient granite stone; above the tree line, and there, beneath a ceiling of vast, ever-changing skies. But I was so preoccupied with the chattering in my own mind, and getting to work on time, that I was oblivious to the abundant and diverse wildlife afforded by this wonderful mosaic habitat that surrounded me. How had I fallen so out of touch with the natural world that I now noticed the changing seasons more by how many layers of clothing I needed to wear to keep me warm (or cool) than by how many leaves the trees were wearing? When had I stopped seeing what colour they were, where in the sky the sun was setting, and which wild flowers were blooming in the hedgerows? What had happened to the little girl who yearned, with every cell in her body, that she might close her eyes one night and wake up the next morning in Moominvalley, where she could and would sit on the edge of a bridge and dangle her feet in the river whilst Snufkin piped in the spring, then look at all the new and exciting wild flowers through a real, grown-up magnifying glass with the Hemulen? Where had gone the slightly older child who used to dream of living with Laura, Jack, and Black Susan in their 'Little House in the Big Woods' of Wisconsin, all safe and tucked up in their trundle beds whilst the wind and the wolves howled through the night outside their windows? And where was the curious ten-year-old who would have given her right arm, not to mention a year's supply of sherbet dips and Black Jacks, to spend just one day in the shoes of the young naturalist Gerald Durrell? Did that little girl still exist? If so, I needed to find her. I scanned back through the years, searching for clues, wondering if there had been some particular event or moment when the child who used to be me had quietly drifted away. Having rediscovered a perspective on the world that had somehow been lost to me for the past three decades, I was determined not to let it slip away again. I vowed to nurture this fragile thing - this reawakening, this precious treasure - to help it grow and become fully conscious once again, and to protect it from whatever ill wind had caused it to bury itself under the blankets of my psyche, where it had hibernated and hidden for all these years. Excerpted from Dancing with Bees: A Journey Back to Nature by Brigit Strawbridge Howard All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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