We were recently given a copy of a newish story – Bee Boy Clash of the Killer Queens.  As soon as I saw this book I knew my youngest was going to love it and he DID.  The very first day it arrived he sat and read the story while he ate his lunch. Everything about the book was just right for him.

He loved the storyline, the text was spaced out and the words manageable for him and the pictures in yellow and black were very effective.

The story follows Melvin, he keeps bees in a beehive on top of their apartment tower.  Melvin is not a confident kid but as the story unfolds his bees start giving him confidence and he ends up with an excellent friend.  The story is sweet but what really got my son’s attention was when Melvin turned into a bee and could go inside the bee hive and talk to the other bees.  Wow, he loved this.  He loves the way the bees all spoke – with zz’s added onto their words and he kept reading the pages were Melvin goes into the hive over and over again.

This was actually his first real chapter book but he did not flinch.  The story had him hooked and he wanted to read page after page (often reading 2 or more chapters in one go).  I think part of the reason was the way the text was formatted on the page.  It is not all crowded together, it was nicely spaced out so for a beginner chapter book it is not intimidating.

There are also lots of pictures scattered throughout the book and speech bubbles when the different characters are talking.

And for me, the fact that it is a fun reading book would honestly have been enough.  Seeing my son pour over the pages and read and reread parts both to himself and then out loud to me or his big sister, that really is what I want in a children’s book – books that create a love of reading, books that make the kids want to curl up somewhere and get lost in a story.

But that is not the only thing this book offers.  There are lots of facts about bees brilliantly woven into the story.  You don’t even realize that you are learning because they naturally flow as part of the story.  I was really impressed with how the author managed this, a fun story with informative facts included without taking anything away from the story.

Both my son and I highly recommend this book.  In fact he is already asking when Bee Boy 2 will be reading for him to read.

You can get a copy of Bee Boy directly from OUP – Bee Boy Clash of the Killer Queens

or from Amazon Bee Boy: Clash of the Killer Queens

We were kindly given our copy of Bee Boy by Oxford University Press.

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