Bombus The Bumblebee

By Elsie Larson

Bombus the Bumblebee tells the story of Bombus, the first bumblebee.  The story begins shortly after creation with Bombus busily buzzing between flowers lapping up nectar.  The honeybees are slightly perturbed by Bombus bumping into them and beating them to the best flowers.  Devising a plan to get Bombus to stop, they tell him that he’s just too bulky to be flying and that he would be better suited to being on the ground crawling. 

Bombus looks at all the other flying bugs and decides that perhaps they’re right, so he stops flying and starts crawling.  Then God shows up and corrects Bombus’ bad attitude.  He says, “what did I tell you to do?  Fly!  So fly.” The book concludes with some facts about bumblebees, most notably that their wings should not be able to support their bodies in flight, yet they do.  There are also some bumblebee activities for children in the back.

Overall, I thought the book was a fun read.  My two-year old son liked it too.

My biggest critique of Bombus the Bumblebee would be the assignment of sinful human characteristics to Bombus and the honeybees in a pre-Fall garden.  I don’t know that children will care about this theological deviation, but it still bothered me as an adult reading the story to my son.  That’s not to say the lessons taught by Bombus and the honeybees aren’t good ones to learn; I just don’t think the pre-fall garden of Eden was an appropriate setting to show issues like selfishness, greed, lying, deception, and disobedience.

If you can look beyond that aspect, I recommend the book.  If you can’t, skip it.

A copy of this book was received for review from the publisher.  All opinions are my own.