cover image Little Honeybee

Little Honeybee

Katie Haworth, illus. by Jane Ormes. Candlewick/Big Picture, $14.99 (14p) ISBN 978-0-7636-8531-7

In this lovely board book with flaps, Haworth counts different types of flowers from one to 10, as a snowy winter scenes gives way to a field in bloom. Haworth’s couplets move forward with a steady, rhythmic cadence (“Three sunny daffodils/ on a bright spring day./ Four nodding tulips/ that gently bob and sway”), and readers can lift flaps shaped like petals, leaves, and clouds to uncover animals underneath (beyond the five cherry blossoms, there are five eggs in a nest, which lifts to show five baby birds underneath). Bursts of bright floral color pop against the pale backdrops of Ormes’s silk-screen prints, abuzz with springtime activity. Ages 3–7. (Mar.)