BE THE BEST BEE YOU CAN BE New Children’s Book Addresses Perils of Social Media STORY BY MICHAEL SEGUIN “I WANT TO FEEL connected, authentically not electronically. I feel suffocated by my insecurities, as the hunger of perfection is shoved down my throat. I touch the grip of a bow as I shoot arrows of negativity toward myself, hitting the target, and shattering the mirror.” When 16-year-old Michela Lepera was asked to write a self-portrait poem for her Enhanced English class, she noticed something blocking her from connecting with her positive attributes. She was quickly able to identify the source. In “A Prisoner of Social Media” Michela intimately characterizes the pressure that social media places on everyone, especially teenagers. “There are people my age who say that social media is great,” Michela explains. “But, there’s another side that everybody ignores. There’s this standard, for girls especially. Girls my age will creep all these accounts and see celebrities. There’s never a flaw. If there’s acne, they’ll fade it out. You’re staring at a picture that seems perfect, but it’s not real.” Constantly comparing yourself to an illusory standard can trap anyone in a quagmire of self-loathing. This presents younger generations with an especially precarious dynamic, who don’t remember a time before these platforms.
Top: Co-authors Alma and John Hogan. Above left to right: The Hogan’s illustrating grandchildren, Eden Miggins, Angelica Lepera, Makai Miggins, Michela Lepera, Ireland Hogan, Sydney Hogan.
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“My children are smaller, so I have more control over what they’re exposed to online,” Jonna Miggins, Michela’s aunt, states. “But I see it from a different perspective. I see how it has changed my relationships with my nieces. Social media promotes an ideal that isn’t authentic.” Touched by Michela’s poem, her grandparents—Alma and John Hogan, two retired secondary school teachers—began working on a children’s book to directly combat these issues. Be the Best Bee You Can Be tells the story of Beatrice. After being ignored by her screen-locked siblings, Beatrice wanders into the garden, only to encounter a kindred spirit in the form of a kindly bee. Feeling envious of others and alone, the bee teaches Beatrice that everyone is special in their own way. “You’re already good enough,” Alma explains. “You’ve got Godgiven worth, that no one should be able to chip away at. We’re thinking of how social media will affect future generations. How do we empower these little ones so that they don’t fall into the same trap that our teens have?” Be the Best Bee You Can Be posits a simple message: be the best person you can be. John and Alma wrote the book together, often over morning coffee. “The lines of the story would come to me at three in the morning,” Alma explains. “The story was effortless.” The book emulates the rhyming couplet style of Dr. Seuss. “Beatrice spotted a bee. She was amazed to hear a voice,” the Hogan’s write. “The bumblebee buzzed busily around her flower of choice. The bee said, ‘I feel a little troubled and sad. I look at my life, and it makes me very mad.’” The writing portion turned out to the easy part. The real challenge was the illustrations. At their son-in-law’s suggestion, the Hogan’s conscripted their grandchildren—Sydney Hogan, Ireland Hogan, Eden Miggins and Makai Miggins—as painters.
