A Bee in Your Ear

Orca Echoes

by Frieda Wishinsky

Kate is determined to win her spelling club's spelling bee, but the competition is fierce. She can almost put up with Violet's relentless claims of superior spelling ability, but when Kate and Jake begin to fight with each other, Kate is miserable. She wants to win the contest, but she doesn't want to lose her best friend.

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[June · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sweet one, if you can get past the art. Is it an art style whose skill I am missing, to draw eyes one-third of the way down the head rather than half-way down? It made all the children look as though there was no way any of them could win a spelling be...or bee.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tumblebooks read

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wishinsky, F.(2004). A Bee in Your Ear. Victoria, BC: Orca Book Publications. 64pp.

Kate and her best friend Jake go up against rivals Violet and Lila in the spelling club’s Spelling Bee. The tension over preparing for the bee threatens Kate and Jake’s friendship.

In this earnest early reader chapter book, Wishinsky captures the grade two students’ desire to win the spelling bee and be crowned the winner in front of family and peers. Her text is rife with repeated vocabulary so that early readers will feel successful and gain confidence in their ability to read chapter books. A great book of triumph and perseverance for primary readers!

[Shubhi]

I heard it in a read-along version online. The read-along was horrible because the person couldn't really change voices and just didn't know how to make it interesting. The book itself, isn't bad. But it isn't amazing either. It might be enjoyed by kids around 6 or 7. However, if you want a story that is pretty much predictable but still good, reading someone like Enid Blyton would probably be more fun.