Just Bee

K-Gr 2—A boy, who is small and fast, is always last to be chosen by the other kids for their team. After a bigger boy boasts to him how great he is because he is bigger, the little boy starts to wish he were different. He thinks of all the ways he could be different. He then hears a buzzing sound. A French bee in a beret lands on the boy's nose. This bee is proud to be itself. However, it used to dream about being other creatures, too. It dreamed of being a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a fish. The bee soon came to see that it enjoyed doing the things that, as a bee, it has the ability to do. What the bee can do, the bee will do it at its best. What the world needs is the boy to be himself. The boy then understands that he is the best at being himself. Watercolor-and-ink illustrations on a white background complement the rhyming prose with a few clever touches, like the path of the bee—it leaves a trail of the word buzzing behind as it flies. The bee also speaks in a French accent with an emphasis on the z's.