Good Reads by Darcy Connor
Preschool/Toddler Please Please the Bees
Picture Book The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest Written & Illustrated by Lynne Cherry
Journey deep into the Brazilian rain forest with your little one to find a man attempting to chop down a Kapok tree. Exhausted from his efforts, he sits down, and soon the sounds of the forest lull him to sleep. While dozing, creatures from across the forest visit him and whisper softly in his ear, teaching him the importance of the trees and how each living thing is dependent on each other. But when he wakes up, will the lessons work or will he continue his chopping until the tree falls down?
Written & Illustrated by Gerald Kelley
As I get older, my fascination with the importance of bees grows stronger. Did you know that 75 percent of the world’s food crops depend on bee pollination? Without bees, food production would drop significantly for humans and animals. Bee populations continue to decline, so creating awareness for these essentials pollinators is paramount. In Please Please the Bees, Benedict the bear has a pretty sweet life. Every morning the bees leave a jar of honey on his doorstep, which he eats throughout the day. Oh, how he loves honey! But one day the bees decide to go on strike and Benedict must figure out what he can do to help his friends, the bees, so that they can once again make him that sweet, wonderful honey.
Elementary School Judy Moody Saves the World! Written by Megan McDonald Illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
Megan McDonald has published more than 60 books for children over her career, including the award-winning Judy Moody series. “My hope is that readers see themselves in Judy Moody, with her strong sense of fun and fairness, as well as her flaws and failures,” McDonald said in an online interview in 2018. “In connecting with Judy and all of her moods, I hope readers discover their own authentic selves. And laugh along the way.” In Judy Moody Saves the World! Judy is determined to, well, save the world after studying the environment in her science class. She is shocked to learn of the destruction of the rain forest and can’t believe her own family’s “crummy recycling habits.” It’s time to roll up her sleeves and get something done! 10 | SAND& PINE MAGAZINE April/May 2021
