Caldecott Medal Contender: Thank You Bees

by Sam Juliano

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.         -William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Though the commercialization of Thanksgiving can never compare to the yuletide celebration of a month later, the late November depletion of the nation’s turkey population has come to be an occasion too often taken for granted.  To be sure much good comes out of the annual rendezvous with beloved family members and a dinner more often than not that’s fit for a king.  What is too often lost for children is the meaning of the day, the reason why school calendars always include two successive days off late in the month that usher in the ensuing weekend.  The big irony of course is that the title of the holiday says all we need to know about the significance of a festive occasion also crassly referred to as Turkey Day, yet even that ubiquitous labeling fails to cut through the pleasures many have come to anticipate with hedonist fervor.  No one is as routinely attuned to the Thanksgiving rituals as children, who are understandably showered with parental affection and all the cheer those special times of the year can engender.  Some family dinner gatherings are prefaced with prayers, or non denominational expressions of appreciation, but it all makes for a kind of blanket statement and a sweeping generality for kids who are accustomed to receiving, but less likely to identify the sources of their gratitude nor the origin of their sustenance and shelter.

Picture book artist Toni Yuly aims to set the record straight in Thank You Bees, a lower level work that could equally be categorized as an invocation or a scene-specific applause for the planet’s natural elements.  While this soulful homage to Earth’s invaluable resources was not designed to honor a holiday, its spirit and auspices make it an attractive addition to books about one of America’s most beloved single days.  Aside from the titular kinship the pervasive theme of Yuly’s book is one of unmitigated gratefulness, and the realization that without even a single one of her fundamental, indispensable acknowledgements, life as we know it could not exist.  While Yuly’s environmental homage is devoid of any replete secular reference, comparable to a work like the 1945 Caldecott Medal winner Prayer for a Child by Rachel Field and Elizabeth Orton Jones, there is nonetheless a spiritual vantage point of a child coming to terms with life’s essentials, via land, water and air.  There is certainly a plethora of fiction that addresses the appreciation process, but Yuly’s inspired primer is as close as a direct ecological plea to youngsters at the most impressionable of ages.  The author-artist doesn’t directly request a measure of conservation, but the implications are clear, and a positive consequence of first knowing what we were blessed with on the planet.

Yuly, whose sublime trilogy composed of Early Bird, Night Owl and Cat Nap is wildly popular in early grade classrooms is a master at connecting with the child’s mind-eyes, employing minimalist ink, tissue, fabric and digital collage drawings that unobtrusively establish products from their direct source, like a stage populated by a chair and table, where the actor’s dialogue is the sole focus.  The author knows her audience and understands the age-old adage less is more, while doggedly refusing to forfeit with that strategy uniquely sumptuous art that is alternately bold and buoyant.  By telling readers the advent of a final product, and then a direct expression of gratitude, there isn’t any room for signal crossing, and it is hoped the correlation will form a lasting perception.

After appropriate yellow end papers that give poll position in ultimate reverence to the sun that is the prime source for making it all happen, Yuly’s frontispiece evokes a certain 1957 Caldecott Medal winner by Janice May Udry and Marc Simont, with the title page letters mounted on a puffy blue cloud hovering over a bee and the tip-off blue-purple flower later seen in the cloud tapestry the opening canvas depicting a young boy looking through braided curtains to behold the source of energy that fuels the process.  The illustrator’s spare design of a yellow ball and narrow triangles make this tableau far more effective than any solar complications a more intricate pattern might have forged.  Sun gives us light is the black lettered  banner across the cloth.  The Je vous remarcie Soleil that a French boy might say features the sun in the dominant role lighting up the sky, with only the boy’s home and a red bird on the receiving end. Bees are then shown buzzing around their pollen source, an impressionist tri-color flower as the boy seated by a window of a blue-violet thatched house bites into a slice of bread with honey as per the reminder of a labeled jar.  On the next double page spread these vital insects in the cycle of life buzz around a flower bed, seemingly basking in the glow of this rightful Danke schoen.  Yuly’s adroit mastery of the violet-red-green minimalist images on a white background create one of the book’s loveliest tableaus, and when added to the choice of this insect for the cover and title, you know this artist is cognizant of some real threats confronting us today.

The origin of our clothing to that staple of a shepherd’s flock is pictorially negotiated by dashes of black squiggly lines, which are what a child envisions when pondering sheep as well as what he or she might draw themselves.  In a splendid touch Yuli’s red bird, an inadvertent homage to her first bestseller is part of the action too with beak clasping on a woolen string.  In the meantime our now ecologically attuned young lad is adorned with a grainy aquamarine colored cap and the same sheep design on his shirt.  The ensuing thank you note to the animal we are most indebted to for what we wear is seen first in a patchwork design that coaches you to caress with your fingers, and then in its unrefined incarnation.  More dots are connected with blue flower and red bird to join in the celebration.  With hands upraised, and dressed in red hood with colored sleeves and buttons, a markedly ebullient boy recalls the art of Ezra Jack Keats, with his gleeful surrender to the elements, in this case the rain that falls from the clouds.  In a corner the flower benefits as well.  The sumptuous Thank you clouds spread features some lovely pastel blue coordination between the nebulous rain holders and a row of flowers.

Trees give us wood.  A wooden tree house and the wooden stairs leading up to it are attached to the source that provide the raw materials for such construction.  The boy happily looks out with the ever-present cardinal perched on its own tangible indebtedness to a tree’s signature value.  In the rejoinder, Thank you, trees the boy plants a new tree, helped by the cardinal.  Next up in the lineup of life’s most essential elements is a nod to the earth itself.  Plants could not be conceived otherwise and the boy is featured in bunny mode crunching on a carrot under the banner Dirt gives us plants and opposite circling vines.  The dirt receives a tip of the cap in a canvas of underground vegetables that recalls the Caldecott Honor winner Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens.  In the lovely blue-violet nocturnal tapestry of the home alongside adult trees, the sapling, a firefly, cardinal watching its nest and a well-deserved salute to Night Owl, the Earth in the most sweeping terms of all is acknowledged as the catalyst for home building.  Gazing out of the window the boy, with a globe anchored next to him issues the final thank you before going horizontal under the heavens in a closing tableau that metaphorically might have an adult reader humming When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.

Basic and elemental Thank you Bees is one of the year’s most direct, concise and economical picture books.  That it is also beautifully conceived and designed are added bonuses that should have this year’s Caldecott Committee paying close attention.  It has already found its way onto the shelves of books to be read at Thanksgiving, though Yuly’s gem is magnificent for any season.

Author-illustrator extraordinaire Toni Yuly

Note:  This is the twelfth entry in the 2017 Caldecott Medal Contender series.  The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running.  In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration.  It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 30 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender.  Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end.  The awards will be announced in mid-February, hence the reviews will continue until around the end of January or through the first week of February.