Honeybee by Naomi Shihab Nye
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Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT -- School Library Journal, 3/5/2008
From SLJ March 2008
NYE, Naomi Shihab. Honeybee.PLB $17.89. ISBN 978-0-06-085391-4. LC 2007036742. 176p. CIP. HarperCollins/Greenwillow. Mar. 2008. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-06-085390-7;
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.
