Please Please the Bees

by Gerald Kelley

Benedict has a pretty sweet life for a bear. Every morning the bees leave a jar of honey on his doorstep, and every day he has honey for breakfast and honey in his tea. It’s an important part of his day.

But all that changes when the bees go on strike.

Now it’s up to Benedict to listen to the bees, and he realizes there’s a lot more he could be doing to help them. So he fixes up the hive and learns to be a better beekeeper. Will the bees be pleased?

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Animals, Nature, Storytime, Food, Fantasy

32 pages, Hardcover

First published April 11, 2017

Reviews

[Ms. B · Rating 4 out of 5]

When bear learns why the bees go on strike from making honey, he shows his gratitude for their hard work and helps to make a difference in their working conditions.
This would be a great book to share with others on the importance of gratitude. It could also spark a discussion about recognizing the time and talents of others.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book!!!!

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benedict the bear lives a lovely life, including a jar of honey left on his doorstep each morning! At least it's good until it isn't! One day a small bee comes by to tell Benedict that the bees are on strike! No more honey, no more deliveries. This bear doesn't realize the work that the bees are going to just to deliver those jars. He's told that they now have to travel miles to gather their needs, and two queens have left! The hive is falling apart, too. Benedict has no idea of the problems, and fortunately, he does something about it. He does the research, restores his field by planting more flowers and finally he's ready to share. The illustrations are wonderfully emotional as this bear is at first dismayed to the point that his life is in disarray. It doesn't stay that way long and it's great to see his response to help those striking bees. It's a good read-aloud story, a lesson about the environment and the plight of bees as well as a beginning lesson in understanding labor unions. It's hard to believe that so much has been included in a brief picture book, but it is a great story.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious - and there's a nice lesson here about bees as well. When the bees' working conditions get too bad, they go on strike. Benedict Bear finally does some research and gets to work to regain the sweet life for everyone.

Kelley's illustrations, especially his use of perspective, are terrific. There are some wry touches that are fun for adults too.

[NBPB Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benedict, the bear, started his mornings with the bees delivering jars of honey. He followed a routine of eating breakfast, cooking, knitting, and running errands, and he followed it every day. Life was cozy for him until the bees went on strike one day. Life of a bear without honey! Oops, unimaginable, poor Benedict. He feels hopeless. One day, a little bee told him about their reason for the strike - unrecognized hard work and poor working conditions. But the bear had never thought about anything other than enjoying honey. So now Benedict did something about it. Did he get back to his daily routine?

We picked this book because bees are our favorites for their values and impact on our environment. Please Please the Bees is a delightful read that teaches the values we always learned from these tiny majestic creatures. In addition, it helps children to respect and value nature. The illustrations are classic-styled and complement the story beautifully.
Please Please the Bees is a perfect value book and a must-have in every little one’s library.
Read the full review at Nothing But Picture Books

[McGuffy Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benedict is living a very sweet life. Of course, he is a bear, so his needs are pretty straightforward. The best part of his day is when the bees deliver honey to his door each morning. Gerald loves honey!

Honey is a big part of Gerald’s day. He uses it on his toast, he uses it to sweeten his baking. Gerald puts it in his bedtime tea. That is, until the day when there is no honey.

Suddenly, the bees in the yard all go on strike! Benedict tries to go on without honey, but his life is not the same. Without honey, life is not as sweet. He becomes very sad. That is when a bee comes to Benedict for a heart-to-heart talk.

It seemed the bees in Benedict’s yard feel they are taken for granted. They have done their part to take care of Benedict, but they realized he was doing nothing in return for them. They could not go on the way things were.

From the bees, Benedict learns what he needs to do to help the bees stay healthy and happy. He learns that bees need certain conditions to make the honey that he loves. Benedict also learns what he can do to help the bees.

So, Benedict goes to work to make his yard a healthy, happy place for the bees. He educates himself on the best flowers for bees. He gets the seeds and plants them, waters them. He even keeps the garden weeded. Benedict also learns about honey and how to harvest it.

When the bees see the hard work, Benedict has done to repay them, they are happy, again. The strike is over! The bees immediately go back to work. Life is sweet for everyone, now.

This is a sweet book! The message is simple and clear. From the great bear to the tiny honeybee to the flowers, we all share this world. If we take care of nature, it will take care of us. I highly recommend this positive book to teach this simple truth to kids. Share it with the children in your life. Everyone will benefit from that, too.

[Makayla Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary:
Please Please the Bees is a cute story about a bear who love honey! The bees always leave honey at his front door every morning, but one day they stopped bringing him honey! Benedict the bear was taking the bees for granted. They're bee houses were falling down because Benedict took too much honey everyday, and they were overworked, so they went on strike! Benedict had to have his honey, so he figured out a way to please the bees. He built them new bee hive shelters, and learned how to harvest honey. The please were so thankful, so they began to make more honey for him.

Evaluation:
This book was structured very well. This was fun fictional way to teach students how bees work, and how they are good. This book provided higher level thinking for students.

Teacher points:
This book would be a great tool to help teach conflict resolution to 3-5 grade students. In this book, the bear had to come up with a solution to show the bees how much he appreciated them so that they would provide him with honey again.

[Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great picture book that we have listened to many times thanks to the SAG Foundation including it in their list of titles read by famous actors.

http://www.storylineonline.net/wp-con...

It not only teaches the importance of saying 'Please' but not of taking things for granted in our lives (like our family or friends). We need to be kind and thoughtful rather than just 'take take take'. Also a nice tie-in when explaining to Miss 3 why I need to do companion planting in the garden (i.e. planting rocket with its plentiful yellow flowers that the bees love so that they will come and pollinate the tomatoes!).

[The Library Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, how I loved this!
Watching Benedict the Bear go through his rather stuffy daily routine charmed me, it felt rather British in tone. And then I giggled as "the very small bee with a remarkably loud voice," arrived on the scene to declare a strike.(I could just hear Joe Pesci or some such doing the bee's voice.) The grown ups reading this will get the underlying drollery, the kids will just enjoy seeing Benedict learning to appreciate the hands (wings really) that feed him. A winner.

[Helaina Storie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good lesson to learn

[Rachael Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun story about a bear and how he learns to help the bees survive. (not for storytime)

[Becca Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads SBC summer text
I loved this picture book. It is a sweet tale about a bear called Benedict who loves honey (children can make links to Winnie the Pooh). He is a creature of habit with a repeated daily routine: honey on toast for breakfast, tea with extra honey, baking a honey cake, knitting his honey slogan jumper, running errands and finishing with a good book in bed and a last cup of honey tea. Very sweet! However one day, the Bees decide to go on 'strike' and stop delivering jars of honey to Benedict every morning. They are fed up of poor working conditions and not being appreciated.

This story covers themes of respect, selflessness, working together, being kind and helping each other. Benedict is discouraged, but decides to do some bee research, shopping and planting! Lo and behold, a beautiful garden is assembled.

There are some great cross-curricular links that can be made across KS1.
PSHE discussions on relationships, being kind and respectful.
Outdoor learning, getting the children exploring through actively engaging in their environment to extend their understanding of the wider world/nature.
In science, children can learn about the importance of bees (relating to current environmental issues), nature and plants (why did Benedict’s solution help the Bees? What do we know about pollination?), bug hotels, renovating the garden area in the school grounds together now we know what makes a good environment.
The large gathering of bees on strike, lends itself to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division number sentences and word problems in maths.
Perhaps in art linking the garden setting to Claude Monet's paintings, in particular The Artist's Garden at Giverny and The Water Lily Pond.
Baking honey cakes or eating honey on toast for food technology.
Role play and structured debates for why the bees should or shouldn't go on strike

This book has endless potential! The illustrations are beautiful too. A great way to encourage a love of nature in the classroom.

[Lauren Carr · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Please Please the Bees” by Gerald Kelley is a thought-provoking tale of a brown bear who stops receiving his daily honey as he is unappreciative of the bee’s hard work. This tale combines cute innocent images with a hard reality tale, making the content more palatable for young readers. The author highlights the real-life struggle of potentially losing bees through the use of animation. While this story may be used for entertainment purposes, its applications can be much wider in the classroom. For instance, this book is a great educational tool not only the threat to bees but how people can work to help prevent them from dying. Additionally, this book could be used as a math connection as one page directly prompts the reader to calculate the amount of honey the bear is receiving in various time intervals. “Please Please the Bees” also contains underlying messages in valuing others, being compassionate, and not being selfish or greedy. Seeing as there are so many valuable classroom lessons that can be taken from this picture book, it would be a great addition to any library.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a bear whose life becomes less sweet when the bees go on strike. The book was cute, with a funny tone and a comedic art style. It feels like the kind of book that would be able to engage young readers well. The story has a strong message to readers that I think could really be taken advantage of by teachers. The book's lesson on putting in hard work and not taking things for granted could be a great message to teach to students, and the bear's process towards helping the bees could be an excellent introduction to a lesson. Teachers could use the book to show the importance of researching, gathering materials, and putting in effort to reach a goal. By making a goal that will better the experiences of the students, maybe like building a garden for the school, teachers could use the book's message to its full potential.

[Madelaine O'Neil]

This book did a great job of breaking down a complicated thing and presenting it in a way that children could understand. The book starts out showing the great life that Benedict has, using all the honey he wants that the bees provide for him. Then, the bees go on strike and the reader learns that the bees are over worked producing all the honey for the bear and they want everything to be more fair. Benedict does a lot of work to make life better for the bees and then they are happy to continue working for him. The use of animals instead of people keeps the book light-hearted enough for children, but still clearly shows them the problem of fair working conditions. It also teaches children about living in a community, and how that involves a give-and-take to make life sweet for everyone. This would be a good book to have in my future classroom.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 stars but dropping it down to 4 for blowing it on a serious but small fact (ALL of the worker bees in a hive are boys; how the editor let this slip through and didn't change it amazes me! I love it when kids can learn science in a fun way; let's not blow it by messing it up in the details, please.)

Can't wait to read this in a storytime--especially one with a beekeeper!--love the message and the illustrations. I totally missed in my first reading how all the plants are dead; Benedict is so busy taking care of just himself that he has no time/energy/devotion for anything else. It takes the bees to wake him up to the world around him and to others' needs. Great way to teach kids without beating them over the head about our honeybees' needs (especially now) and about helping others.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book to help children understand the importance of not taking people and gifts for granted. Benedict is pretty lazy when it comes to supporting himself and his honey habit until the bees are totally fed up and stop producing for him. He then has to research, work, and develop a good relationship with his little workers. In the end life is much sweeter when everyone lends a hand. My kids enjoy the story and beautiful illustrations. The one that gets the most comment is when Benedict is sitting by himself trying to figure out how he is going to please the bees. His coloring is done in gray which my children pick up on as being sad. For some reason that always deserves a comment.

[Cora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per my second graders: I liked it because when he woke up and went to his door, the bees delivered him honey. I like it because it had a good message of being respectful to others and being grateful. I liked that he started working hard for the bees.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded up because it seems timely.

Benedict enjoys his routine until his daily 3 jars of honey are not delivered by the bees. They have gone on strike. Their hive is a wreck, they have to fly miles to find flowers... Has Benedict been too selfish? How can he make things right?

[Madison Swim-Hotchkiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please Please the Bees by Gerald Kelley is an amazing children’s book. It is about a bear who gets honey from his bees every day. But one day, the bees go on strike because they have poor working conditions and the bear is taking advantage of them. The bees say until their conditions improve, they will no longer be making any honey for the bear. The bear is initially upset, but then he comes to his senses. He realizes that it is wrong of him to expect the bees to do all of the work just so he can have honey. The bear remakes the bee’s house, improves his yard, and is very respectful to the bees. After this, the bees make him honey again.

I love this book because it shows kids how important it is to respect one another and the hard work each one of them does. They can not expect a person to do a whole bunch of work for them and not do anything in return. It also teaches kids to care about one another and their feelings. The illustrations in this book are also amazing, and they are very bright and colorful. This would be a book that I would read to students anywhere from kindergarten to second grade, as it would be a good fit for this age group.

[Rebecca Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

SBC Summer 20 Text

I loved this book. This book follows a bear called Benedict who has the same daily routine. Every morning, 3 jars of honey are left on his doorstep from the bees. However, one day, Benedict woke up and there was no honey left for him. The bees went on strike! Benedict was not happy about the absence of honey and became discouraged. Benedict tells the bees that they should show some gratitude towards him as he lets them live in his yard but the bees were not happy. Their hive is a wreck and three queens have left. The bees tell Benedict that if he wants his honey, things need to change. So, Benedict did a lot of work. He learnt how to harvest honey and built a hive for them. The bees were so happy about all the work that Benedict had done for them and decided that the strike was over and they could go back to work.

This book would be a great book to read aloud to children and the illustrations are amazing and match the story perfectly. This book is a great book to use with children of around year 1 and 2 as it shows them the importance of gratitude and to respect one another.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please Please the Bees is a delightful and thoughtful story - perfect for reading aloud and sparking meaningful conversations. The book follows Benedict, a bear who loves his routine, especially his daily honey delivery from a hardworking hive of bees. But when the bees suddenly go on strike, Benedict is forced to stop and think: has he been taking their efforts for granted? Through expressive language, engaging illustrations, and just the right touch of whimsy, author and illustrator Gerald Kelley crafts a story that’s as entertaining as it is enlightening. Young readers will be captivated by Benedict’s journey from self-centered comfort to thoughtful change, as he learns the importance of gratitude, compassion, and doing his part.

This story shines as a read-aloud and invites rich discussion about fairness, teamwork, and appreciation. Whether at home or in the classroom, Please Please the Bees is a feel-good tale that reminds us how kindness and cooperation go a long way.

[Tatiana Crichton]

This book did a great job of breaking down a complicated thing and presenting it in a way that children could understand. The book starts out by showing the great life that Benedict has, using all the honey he wants that the bees provide for him. Then, the bees go on strike and the reader learns that the bees are overworked producing all the honey for the bear and they want everything to be more fair. Benedict does a lot of work to make life better for the bees and then they are happy to continue working for him. The use of animals instead of people keeps the book light-hearted enough for children, but still clearly shows them the problem of fair working conditions. It also teaches children about living in a community, and how that involves a give-and-take to make life sweet for everyone. This would be a good book to have in my future classroom.

[Alyssa Drajic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book about the main the lesson of selfishness. When the main character is confronted about his selfishness he realizes that he was indeed being selfish. Then decides to make some changes and give back to others (to the bees). The physical quality of this hardback cover is great but the pages seem a little flimsy to me. Which would not be good for readers who tend to be a little rough with the pages. The illustrations are great and would keep readers engaged. The colors that are used in the illustrations are soft warm tones. Even though the moral of the story is an important but I just did not find the book itself interesting and thats why I rated this book a 3. But to a young reader who enjoys nature, bears, or bees would find this book entertaining.

[Hazel Rainfall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short little story is extremely over the top PC. It is very liberal-swayed book which is fantastic for parents wanting to help teach their kids about these values. I did not like how inaccurate the science is. I do firmly believe that science should always be represented in an accurate way, so children learn the truth.
I dislike that this bear never goes to work or school, yet does a ton of other daily tasks. I think this teaches kids that working and school is not really part of a daily routine.
I very much love that the bear starts to clean his own yard and actually does maintenance and work of that sort though.

The artwork is amazing as is the cleverness of the story.

[Tyler Wansack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please Please the Bees was a great story and I loved the pictures in this story. I feel that children can learn many things when reading this story. You can learn how to please others who have helped you out like when Benedict built the bees new bee hive shelters and became a better beekeeper after the bees had left him honey on his doorstep all those times. Children can also learn what it means to go on strike, which I thought was interesting. It helps children understand the importance of saying ‘please’ and to not take things for granted; instead of ‘taking’ all of the time, you learn to give back.

[Lori C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre: Children's Picture Book - Fiction
Ages: K-3rd

This is a great book about empathy, community, and gratitude. Bear is a creature of habit. Every day honey shows up on his doorstep and he really gives no consideration to how it got there. Until the cute little bees go on strike. This is a great lesson for children - and adults! We should all take a little time to think about who is responsible for making, creating, building, and growing the things we use every day. And how we can be more of a giver and less of a taker. The world would be a much better place for it.

[Jared White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, quirky book about not taking things for granted and making your yard a happy place for bees. Relating to the last note, I feel like the author or publisher could have included a little information or suggested resources in the back about how people can please the bees.

If you want to go deeper, this book provides an opportunity to have a discussion about working and living conditions for those who provide the things we so often consume without a thought...I do not think about these things enough.

[Paul Graham Terpstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book in town! Best bees around!
The bear has the sweet life, everything nice in his life!
Then one day the sweetness sours, and his honey supply is dry.
What will the bear do? Will he improve life for the bees? Or simply sulk and complain.
This book will make you think about fairness. Why should someone work for nothing in horrid work conditions so that the man in charge gets new flashing toys. While you sit and starve.
The bear must change his way, or the sweet life will leave his reach for good.
The worker bees have been taken for granted!

[Lexi Lashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please Please the Bees is definitely a book to keep children on their toes. This picture book is about a bear named Benedict and a bee. The bear has a daily routine, all while the bee brings him 3 jars of honey a day in change for a flower garden! The bee gets fed up that he is not getting any in return and says that the hive is a mess! So, Benedict came to the conclusion that he was being selfish so he went to the store and planted a garden. I love this because it teaches the children how to compromise and live together. It shows how to make yourself and others happy at the same time.