“Her mother’s note said she was a bee, but Osmia wasn’t so sure. She began to wonder if she was even a bee at all.”

Osmia sees bees all over her meadow and in magazines, on t-shirts, in children’s costumes and they all look “round” and “fluffy” and colored “yellow and black.” Osmia has a bit of an identity crisis as she does not look like those bees. Luckily for Osmia, in her distress she bumps into Xyla, a carpenter bee that helps Osmia realize that there are a lot of different types of bees and they look (and act) differently.

Budding insect enthusiasts will find a lot to like in this illustrated picture book that showcases five distinct bees that don’t wear the traditional black-and-yellow colors. But you don’t have to be an entomologist to appreciate Osmia, whose differences made her feel like she just didn’t belong. Sometimes we need someone to point out just how much we all have in common despite our differences- and in Osmia’s case it is “four wings, two eyes on the side of her head, and three eyes on top.” Share this affirming story with lower & mid elementary readers/listeners.