This is a delightful and engaging wordless picture book with a meaningful message – it would suit anyone who would like to explore friendship as well as the value of bees to our planet.

The bee is the main character who teaches a little girl what he needs to thrive, after she catches him in a glass and lets him go out of her window. The bee is in the middle of town, getting soaked in a storm and in need of more help. He returns to the window and this time the girl is not so afraid – she takes the bee in and feeds it honey and water. Many readers will identify with the girl up to this point. But then she keeps him and a friendship blossoms which ultimately takes them both out into the countryside and a world of colour:

Readers of The Promise by Nicola Davies will recognise similarities as the bee and the girl take parts of this natural world back into town and improve the lives of those within it. The wordless story is told entirely through images, beautifully drawn by Alison Jay, which allows for individual interpretations of the characters’ thoughts and motives. By the end of the book, readers will question if it was in fact, the bee who rescued the girl and those around her.