Pre-Owned Bee and Me (Board Book)

Publishers Weekly,A book that will draw inevitable-and not necessarily favorable-comparisons to Rufus Butler Seder's Gallop! and Swing!, this story boasts color pictures in inset panels that appear to move as the pages are turned. The animations-a dog chasing a bee, a daisy opening its petals-provide a "wow" factor, but unexceptional rhyming verse and illustrations weigh down the project. An anthropomorphized honeybee is chased by a dog into a house, where she is trapped after a frightened boy shuts the window. The bee begs for his aid, explaining how bees help plants, trees and flowers grow ("And then from her eye came a big, shiny tear./ 'We just want to help but you all run in fear' "). The animated panels are not especially well integrated, and a list of facts about bees is at odds with the fanciful depictions of a four-legged bee with big blue eyes. Ages 4-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved