Gerald Kelley

Benedict's life is sweet. Every morning he wakes up to three jars of honey from the bees and he goes about his day following his daily routine: eating his honey toast and honey tea for breakfast, practicing, perfecting his honey cake recipe, knitting, running errands, read his book before bed, and drink one last cup of honey tea. But one morning when Benedict woke up, there was no honey from the bees; the bees had gone on strike. The bees were tired of doing all the work for Benedict and show more getting noting in return. Benedict didn't even notice his selfishness and so he decided to make a change. From then on, Benedict appreciated the bees and his honey. His life was even sweeter now.

I really enjoyed this story. I love the message of appreciation it gives to readers. I also love that it teaches the reader to not take people for granted and to respect one another through mutually giving and taking rather than putting all the work on someone else. This is such an important message in life for all relationships and it's still something that people struggle with. This book is definitely going to be one that I save for when I become a teacher. show less

A routine-loving bear's life is disrupted when the bees don't deliver his usual jars of honey - they've gone on strike! Bear considers, realizes he has been taking the bees for granted, and thinks about what they might need. His actions cause the bees to end their strike, and everyone is happier going forward.

A lovely story with a point about gratitude and thoughtfulness. I would have liked a little back matter about what humans can do to help bees, but the illustrations show the bear show more cleaning up weeds and trash and planting wildflowers, so readers can infer.

Recommended by someone at the Hitchcock Center, I think. show less

I loved the book Please Please the Bees, by Gerald Kelly because the illustrations, characters, and plot were creatively done in this modern fantasy book. I loved how the pictures were water color paintings. They were splotches of a scene on the white page, it did not fill the entire page with a perfectly rectangular image, this effect made the reader feel as though they were picturing the story in their heads and activating their imagination rather than the feeling of watching a movie and show more seeing the full picture of what is happening. I also liked the characters of this story. I like the symbolic proportional size relationships between the one giant bear and the many small bees standing up for themselves showing that everyone has a right to be respected, no matter who you have to stand up to. And finally, I also liked the plot of this children’s book. I liked how the bear considered what the bee was telling him and he learned how to coexist with the bees happily by learning what it takes to care for a bee garden. For example, the bear went to the store to get plants and remodel the garden for the bees. He also bought a book to learn about how bees make honey, so he knew how much work it took for them to provide enough honey for him. The big message of this story is teaching the importance of building a community. That a community is all about giving and taking and learning to build relationships with everyone around you so that everyone can live in harmony. Also, another message I took from this story is the value of not taking life’s pleasures for granted, when life is “sweet”, they should know they’re life is sweet, and not take it for granted. They should take the time to appreciate and value those around them and realize what your life would be like without them. show less

Please Please the Bees by Gerald Kelley-
I truly enjoyed this book. There were many examples of personification and juxtaposition. For example, Benedict says, “Then he heard the remarkably loud voice of the very small bee.” Although the information in the book was not 100% accurate, it did explain that bears live their lives with the same routine their whole lives, which is a fact. I also enjoyed how the message that Benedict the bear learns, is to not take things for granted. The show more message is also about being able to live with each other and respecting and being a part of a community. You help each other to make things easier on everyone. The reader gets the opportunity to learn about long-term effects of supply and demand, in terms of bees and honey, and how it can affect humans and animals. Life was sweet for Benedict until the bee’s went on strike. They complained because the roof leaked, the wind would blow through the cracks, the last 3 queens quit because of the working conditions and there were weeds all over their garden causing the bees to fly far to find flowers to make their honey, and demanded change from Benedict. He then decides that maybe he has been selfish expecting 3 jars of honey from the bees everyday since he was a cub. He decides to learn how to harvest honey and makes some changes that the bees were asking for. Once seeing Benedict making his honey the bees decide to get back to work and life is sweet for everyone. show less