Ant and Bee and the Secret (Ant & Bee) [Hardcover]

Angela Banner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ant & Bee

A gentle introduction to discussing teasing, friendship and school. When Bee calls Ant stupid, he runs away to a secret place. Bee and Kind Dog want to know Ant's secret place, which they eventually discover is school.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 77 pages
• Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd (May 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 043492959X
• ISBN-13: 978-0434929597
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,194,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book makes me happy!, August 3, 2000

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Ant and Bee and the Secret (Ant & Bee) (Hardcover)

This book is exciting! It is a mystery. It is really fun. There is an ant and bee and kind dog. They are friends. They aren't always nice to each other. Bee learns how to be nice in the end.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read to Your Child to Improve Bonding and Intellect!, August 6, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ant and Bee and the Secret (Ant & Bee) (Hardcover)

Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.

To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. Ant and Bee and the Secret was one of her picks.

I was surprised that she liked this book because it was the source of many critical discussions between us when she was younger. Let me explain. In the story, whenever the two friends, ant and bee, do something together, bee always does it better than bee at first. Bee then taunts ant by saying that ant is stupid. Ant gets angry and stalks off to a secret place. When ant returns, ant can outdo bee at whatever the activity is (such as drawing straight lines for hop scotch, jumping rope, and telling stories). My daughter and I both thought that was very rude of bee, and we didn't like that feature of the story.

After much discussion, we decided to change the story. Wherever it said 'stupid' we substituted 'silly' (my daughter's choice of word). And we both liked the book much better after that.

This book is a beginning reader, and there are five words printed in red in it (Ant, and, Bee, the, SECRET). As you and your child read the story together, your child reads the five words in red whenever they appear. It's a lot of fun (almost like singing a round) , and those words are quickly mastered.

The drawings are very cute, and having a mystery also helps sustain the child's interest. I won't tell you what the secret place is, but you'll like the answer.

Overcome your stalled thinking that children cannot rewrite stories to make them work better for them! Read and enjoy this fine book, and being with your rapidly-learning young reader!

One of the things I liked best about the story is that is indicates that you can improve if you work on it. Ant developed better skills, and bee developed better manners. Too often, young children can end up being discouraged if things don't go perfectly. Motor coordination skills develop differently from one child to the next, and we all should be encouraging and patient with that.