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Cider Mill Press
April 2007
On Sale: April 1, 2007
40 pages ISBN: 0938317989 EAN: 9780938317982 Hardcover
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Childrens
The Bee Tree is a magical story about giant bees, about
trees that are higher than your eye can see in a forest
that is more dark than light, and about a young boy named
Nizam who soon will become a man. Nizam lives in a village near the rainforest preserve
surrounding PeduLake, just below the Thai border in
Peninsular Malaysia. His grandfather Pak-Teh is the leader
of the honey hunting clan. It is Pak-Teh who has the high
honor of climbing the tall Tualang tree in the annual hunt
to gather honey from the nests of giant honey bees. But Pak-Teh is getting older and is now ready to prepare
someone to take his place. He believes that Nizam is the
one. Even though Nizam has climbed the mighty Tualang-the
bee tree-in the daylight, he has never done it at night.
Will he be brave enough? On the first moonless night of the honey hunt, Nizam and
Pak-Teh and the other honey hunters enter the dark
rainforest. Pak-Teh starts the hunt with a prayer and a
traditional story. Then he begins to climb. Nizam follows.
Can he climb that high and not be afraid? Will the angry
bees sting him? At the top, Nizam and Pak-Teh use the honey hunters' secret
to keep from being stung, while their clansmen below soothe
the bees with chanting. After a week of gathering honey in
the nights, the clan returns home to celebrate their sweet
and miraculous golden harvest. At this feast, Pak-Teh honors Nizam with an important
announcement. This is a collaboration between three remarkable people: a
scientist who has been fascinated with insects since the
third grade; a writer who believes that writing children's
books is her way of building a better world; and an artist
who never stops sketching and drawing as he travels. Meet the creators of The Bee Tree: Stephen Buchmann has traveled all over the world studying
bees. He is a member of the entomology department faculty
at the University of Arizona, and the author/co-author of
150 scientific papers and 8 books (including The Forgotten
Pollinators and Letters from the Hive). He is active in
international pollination research, conservation and
policies to protect the world's pollinators and the plants
they pollinate. He served on a National Academy of
Sciencecommittee investigating the status of pollinators in
NorthAmerica. Diana Cohn is an award winning children's book author. Her
books include S, Se Puede! / Yes, We Can! (Cinco Puntos
Press); Dream Carver (Chronicle Books); and Mr. Goethe's
Garden (Bell Pond Books). She is a hobbyist beekeeper with
a deep interest in pollination ecology. She first met Steve
Buchmann while working on a radio documentary on the
pollination crisis in America. As a result of their meeting
they co-founded The Bee Works, an organization dedicated to
public education about pollination ecology. Paul Mirocha's illustrations first appeared in Gathering
the Desert by Gary Paul Nabhan, winner of the John
Burroughs Medal for natural history in 1985. After 13 years
as a graphic designer for the University of Arizona's
Office of Arid Lands Studies, Paul left to become a full-
time illustrator, producing over 20 children's picture
books and pop-ups as well as modern nature writing, among
them High Tide in Tucson, Prodigal Summer, and Small
Wonder, by Barbara Kingsolver. Paul has made five trips to
Malaysia. His paintings in The Bee Treecome directly from
his sketchbook and memories from those experiences.
No awards found for this book.
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