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#HistFicThursdays - Transforming a Room into Yesteryear

There are so many things we have today which were almost beyond imagination in the past. This has been particularly brought home to me this week as I'm making a few trips to our county town (more than 100 miles away), and because we lost the internet which brings home just home much we use it! Technology certainly has its benefits! In fact, looking around the room (and this is a comparatively old-fashioned room) as I'm writing this, there are so many things we take for granted which would simply not have existed even a couple of hundred years ago. You can, of course, discount anything which uses electricity and, more interestingly, all of the paperback books - of which there are hundreds - and none of the MDF bookcases either. There would have been no photographs, although there may well have been paintings and sketches of the people in them. But it's not just about taking away what is here now. It's also about what we have lost since then. Rooms needed lighting, and th...

Book Review: Honey Harvest by Elissa Kerr (Illustrations by Zoe Saunders)



Honey Harvest tells us the story of a little girl who loves honey and goes on a beautifully ordinary adventure to find out how bees make honeycomb and how that is then turned into the runny honey which she loves to eat.

It’s a long-running joke in my family that I made my little sister scared of bees. As a child, I was absolutely terrified of them and used to run away every time one came near me. Of course, as Clem got old enough to play outside, I taught her to do the same thing. Oops. 

I do love bees though. We don’t keep them ourselves, but we have many wonderful wild species which visit the garden, including some rare and unusual ones. Bees are little furry, buzzy proof that magic exists.

Naturally, I really love honey too. Honey on Shredded Wheat… mmm… and, recently, I’ve been reading lots about Alexander the Great so I discovered other fascinating properties of honey (if you don’t know, consider looking it up – very interesting, if slightly grisly).

Back to Honey Harvest… 

…this is a book I would have loved to read as a child who was afraid of bees. The story is written in rhyme, which will appeal to the little ones. Once or twice, I wasn’t 100% convinced by the rhymes but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the story at all. It is a book which teaches without letting on – and children will find it fascinating. One of my regrets is that, as a worldwide reviewer, my copy was an ebook so I couldn’t take it into school for my class – I think they would really have enjoyed it, and beekeeping is a branch of farming which doesn’t get covered in enough farming kidlit.

As well as the lovely story, the illustrations are stunning and absolutely perfect to compliment the words. As a child of the 1990s, they reminded me stylistically of the Usborne Farmyard Tales and that just stole my heart straight away. The “factory bees” page is absolutely adorable!

In summary, a beautiful book which will encourage little ones to explore the natural and engineering magic which goes into making delicious runny honey!



Blurb

It's late summertime in the meadow. Flowers are in full bloom and honeybees float on the warm breeze. It's now time to harvest honey from the hive.

Beautifully illustrated, this buzz-worthy book is the perfect introduction to the tools and traditions involved in beekeeping.


Social Connections

Twitter/Blog:
@lovebookstours 
@igbooktours

Facebook Handle: 
Scenic Route Publishing

Author's Website: 
https://www.scenicroutepublishing.com/

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