Bee & Me, from Alison Jay, is a wordless picture book and has fast become one of our favourites in our house!

Even before buying it, once I had told my daughter that it had no words and you can tell the story from the pictures, straight away she was sat flicking through the pages telling herself the story. From that moment, the book was sold to me!

By being wordless, it gives children the confidence to tell the story themselves and empowers them to be the storytellers.

Not only is it wonderful that it is wordless and gives children this confidence, it is also a wonderful and important story. Bees are so important in our world, and Bee & Me effortlessly shows you why they are. When a bee flies through a little girl’s window, at first she is panicked and traps the bee. But soon she wonders what to do… and so begins a magical tale of a bee and the bee’s friendship with the girl.

Alison Jay’s illustrations were created using alkyd oil paints and are full of detail. Every time you look at the book, you notice something new! The pictures have a gentle colour scheme, in keeping with the gentle nature of the story. It is a wordless book, but when sharing the story, don’t miss a list of ‘good bee flowers’ and factual information about bees at the end of the book.

I really love the backstory to why Alison Jay wrote this. After a bee flew through her own window, she revived it with sugary water. And there was the beginnings of Bee & Me, a beautiful tale of friendship and the importance of bees.

Bee & Me is a fantastic way to introduce the concept of conservation to children.