Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose [Library Binding]

Naomi Shihab Nye (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Honey. Beeswax. Pollinate. Hive. Colony. Work. Dance. Communicate. Industrious. Buzz. Sting. Cooperate.

Where would we be without them? Where would we be without one another?

In eighty-two poems and paragraphs, Naomi Shihab Nye alights on the essentials of our time—our loved ones, our dense air, our wars, our memories, our planet—and leaves us feeling curiously sweeter and profoundly soothed.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Naomi Shihab Nye has received a Lannan Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and four Pushcart Prizes. Her collection 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East was a finalist for the National Book Award, and her collection Honeybee was awarded the Arab-American Book Award. She is currently serving on the Board of Chancellors for the Academy of American Poets. Naomi Shihab Nye has edited several honored and popular poetry anthologies, including Time You Let Me In, What Have You Lost?, Salting the Ocean, and This Same Sky, and she is the author of the novels Habibi and Going, Going. She lives with her family in San Antonio, Texas.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Library Binding: 176 pages
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books (February 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060853913
• ISBN-13: 978-0060853914
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,386,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Naomi Shihab Nye, poet, essayist, anthologist, has been a recipient of writing fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Witter Bynner Foundation/Library of Congress. Author of more than twenty volumes, her recent books inc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: HONEYBEE, March 18, 2008

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose (Hardcover)

Bees Were Better

"In college people were always breaking up.
We broke up in parking lots,
beside fountains.
Two people broke up
across the table from me
at the library.
I could not sit at that table again
though I did not know them.
I studied bees, who were able
to convey messages through dancing
and could find their ways
home to their hives
even if someone put up a blockade of sheets
and boards and wire.
Bees had radar in their wings and brains
that humans could barely understand.
I wrote a paper proclaiming
their brilliance and superiority
and revised it at a small cafe
featuring wooden hive-shaped honey dippers
in silver honeypots
on every table."

Part of me feels as though I should include a disclaimer when I write about a new book by Naomi, but that is silly -- she is not really my cousin; it just feels that way, having been lucky enough over the years to spend tiny bits of time around her and receive the occasional note that always carries with it a peacefulness like that which I experience upon reading correspondence from Tony, my eldest cousin on my Sicilian side. As I've written previously, Naomi is a fellow Piscian and fellow vegetarian whom I've seen deftly transform a cardboard convention center room into a sacred space with simply a basket of pita, a bowl of hummus, and a book of poetry.

I read and admire a lot of poetry for children and adolescents. I am quite often entertained by it and always share it at booktalks -- including some pieces I first read as a child.

I find something so special in getting to spend an afternoon reading Naomi's work.

HONEYBEE is Naomi's new collection of poetry. Each of the eighty-two poems has a wonderful personal quality; the collection reads as if it is a series of notes in various poetic forms that she has written to the reader.

"...My niece in Australia told me that the students in her university class were required to read the blog of an Iraqi citizen and write about it before they could graduate. She chose a girl who is now fifteen writing under the pseudonym Sunshine. I began reading Sunshine's blog too. I love the way she writes about the details of her life-her friends, the books she is reading, her activities and memories. Life is so difficult since the war started, but still she ends her entries with lines like, 'Try not to lose hope.' She wishes she could live the way kids in other countries live, without so much constant violence surrounding them. Sunshine has become my personal hero, drinking deeply out of the moments. So much is passing so fast..."

This is a bittersweet collection, as Naomi is clearly feeling the pain -- like so many of us -- that continues to be the product of five years of war and war spending. It is also a collection that repeatedly alludes to bees and to the mysterious and well-publicized disappearance of a lot of honeybees in a very short time:

"All the theories about the disappearing bees omit one possibility: they are sick of the word 'busy.' They are on strike. Sure this cycling and collecting and producing is what they've done for so long...worker and queen and drone...blossom and hive and comb... but the last thing the bees want stuck in their pollen baskets is a cliche. Busy? Not I. We can't even know if they adore the fragrances of flowers...but they must, right? Let's hope so. Let's hope there's pleasure in it.

In France, some teenagers asked me, 'Is it true, in your country, students don't take time to sit down and drink tea and eat pie upon return from school?'

Eat pie? This was hard to answer.

'I hope they eat pie,' I said. We all need pie.'
Then I started looking for a restaurant that served pie..."

I, myself, headed for the funky little cafe in Sebastopol where my teenage daughter works after school. I spent the afternoon there, with Rosemary bringing me iced herbal tea and little vegetable sandwiches, and Naomi talking to me through her book, bringing me up to date on her life and observations as one of our most treasured poets.

"And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in."

I highly recommend that you find a nice place to spend an afternoon and experience HONEYBEE.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BuzZen, May 10, 2008

By 

Donna Fleetwood "Donna F" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose (Hardcover)

Synchronicity is when you are with a company called BuzZen and your favorite poet writes a book called Honeybee. It arrived today and I have spent the day savoring it.

"Watch us humans as we enter our rooms,remove our shoes and watches, and stretch out on the bed with a single good book. It's the honey of the mind time. Light shines through our little jars."

0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected, August 9, 2010

By 

Desi671 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose (Hardcover)

I picked this up at the library today for my 11 year old son under the impression it was a poem book about nature. The intro was pretty cute, but then I started reading through some of the poems and was disappointed when several of them were politically based. Regardless of my political beliefs, I think it is poor taste for any author to package a book for children to push their own political agenda.