Sekaninova, Stepanka. Diary of a Bee. Linh Dao, Illus. Albatros, 04/2025. [32]pp. Nonfiction. Trade $16395.00. 978-80-00-07446-7. GRADES 1–3. ADDITIONAL.
Originally published in Czech in 2022, this mixes plenty of factual information on bees into a simple story. Matilda begins as a larva and develops into a worker bee, showing the life cycle of a bee. There is a bee wedding and a funeral, and several entries on the daily work of the different types of bees including drones and the queen. The digital illustrations resemble watercolor cartoons of bees with human faces and hair, but bee bodies, with the text set down in paragraphs and with dialogue balloons. Candace Fleming’s Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera (2020) is a better choice, but this works as a supplemental resource for primary graders.
Penny Peck—San José State University, iSchool