Stephen Buchmann and Diana Cohn, illustrated by Paul Mirocha,
The Bee Tree
Cinco Puntos Press, 2007.

Ages 9-12

The Bee Tree is the story of a Malaysian boy's coming-of-age as he aspires to his grandfather's place as lead honey hunter in the rainforest tualang trees. Six-foot-long nests, 120 feet in the air and guarded by protective swarms, initially fill the boy Nizam with terror: however, bolstered by the Unseen Protector, the clan's chanted prayers and his grandfather's guidance, Nizam braves a moonless night to lure the bees from their nests, cut into their thick combs, and experience for the first time the "magic" of "our fine friends" the bees.

As the tale unfolds, it is vividly supported by the illustrations, which convey the intermingling in Malaysia of tradition and the new.  Pictures of family and rural life give way quickly to the density of rainforest scenery, then wander through the more stylized illustrations of the legend of Hitam Manis, a servant girl transformed with her loyal friends into a powerful swarm of bees in order to escape from a sultan's soldiers.

While the story of Nizam's journey from bucket carrier to honey gatherer could stand very well on its own, the authors' blending of myth, geography, and harvest and Islamic rituals creates a rich tapestry of multicultural experiences, making it a worthy resource for exploitation in the classroom. Additional factual chapters explore both the authors' and illustrator's own passion for bees and expand into the broader fields of conservation and pollination ecology.

Holding such rich stores, The Bee Tree allows children researching Malaysian culture to go beyond the standard list of profitable exports - rubber, microchips and tin - and explore locally valuable and valued resources: "As long as there is the rainforest," says the grandfather,  "there will be bees, and as long as there are bees, there will be honey, and as long as there is honey, there will be honey hunters." Expounding on this activity, which has supplied his people with sustenance and medicine for many generations, he pays deep reverence to his surroundings: "Everything in the forest is given by the Creator...We need to take care of the forest and if we do so, the forest will take care of us." A lesson we all need to learn.

Ann Grandin
May 2007