Winder Bees & Other Poems of the Cold

Winter Bees and Other Poems of the Cold by Joyce Sidman and Rick Allen

          Sidman, J., & Allen, R. (2014). Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Illustrator R. Allen) ISBN 9780547906508

Winter Bees allows the reader to discover the lives many different animals and learn how they survive in the snow.  In this poetry book, readers are able to learn various facts about animals while appreciating the beautiful artwork by Rick Allen.

Winter Bees is a collection of poems written in first person point of view, where we follow each animal and learn more about their habits as winter falls upon their habitat.  Most poems in this collection follow a rhyme scheme making it easier for the younger readers to predict the next lines in the story.  In addition to a poem in the animals (or even nature's) point of view, each poem features a paragraph of text where readers are invited to learn more about the feature animal/plant, though this paragraph is written in normal text, and not as a poem.

As a result of each poem being written in first person point of view, each poem feels more personal as Sidman's use of imagery places you in the place of the object you are learning about.  In one of the twelve poems, the poem titled "Brother Raven, Sister Wolf" place you in the place of not just one, but two animals, the raven and wolf, and each point of view is differentiated by the use of italics.  The tone of the poems depends on which animal you are learning about, for instance, in the poem about the moose, the tone of the poem is carefree and childlike as you are placed in the shoes of a young moose, a calf.  As you read about the ravens and wolves who work together to survive, the tone of the poem is more tense, as the animals are focused on survival, and this is illustrated in the lines "But don't stray too far.  Keep watching our woods.  Don't slack off your work.  Keep tracking our dinner."  The tones vary throughout the 12 poems but are written clearly.  The poems themselves are written simply enough to where an older elementary student should be able to understand, though the informational text that is also provided with the poem may seems too much like an "info-dump" to where it may lose the interest of some readers.   

The art itself is very vivid and eye-catching for readers of any age. The one thing I have to note is that on the cover of Winter Bees, there is a very cute fox on the cover and I was expecting to learn more about it,  but after reading the book, I was slightly disappointed because there wasn't a single poems about the fox!  Another notes is that while most of the poems are placed away from the beautifully artwork, I did find it it a bit difficult to read the poem "Snowflake Wakes" where we learn more about snowflakes.  This poems has a background that is very snowy, and while the colors are very beautiful (various shades of blues and purples) the background is peppered with a lot of white to signify the snow falling.  While the background of this poem is not very busy, and it still is readable, when compared to the more basic backgrounds of the other poems, Snowflake Wakes is more difficult to read.  Other than those two notes, the rest of the artwork was beautifully done and adds well to tones and imagery that Sidman describes in each poem.  

If you enjoyed reading poems and being educated about a particular topic, then you may also like When Green Becomes Tomatoes by Julie Fogliano, another poetry book where readers will learn about the seasons.  After reading Winter Bees, readers can discuss the vocabulary used in this book by using the provided glossary in the back of the book.  If the reader is curious about learning more about one of the animals, then they can conduct research about it.  Additionally, a discuss can be had about how the animals in Winter Bees differ from the ones where the reader lives, and you could discuss which animals do live near you and how they prepare for the winter! What do readers think of Winter Bees? Deborah Stevenson, editor from Bulletin, stated that "Sidman is a master at retaining overall momentum while giving the individual poems their own form and style." 

Awards for this title:  

• Winner of 2015 Claudia Lewis Poetry Award

Citation

Sidman, J., & Allen, R. (2014). Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Stevenson, D. (2014). [Review of the book Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold, by Joyce Sidman]. Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 68(4), 230. https://doi.org/10.1353/bcc.2014.1016.

Winter bees. Joyce Sidman. (n.d.). https://www.joycesidman.com/books/winter-bees