Kenneth and Queenie: Super Friends

Kenneth and Queenie: Super Friends by Raymond McGrath (Affirm Press) PB RRP $14.99 ISBN 781923046252

This debut graphic novel contains three stories, each one featuring a bee known as Queenie. In the first story, ‘Be Nice’, Kenneth and Queenie have just met and they’re already fighting. Queenie has found a fun, new way to pollinate, and Kenneth is not impressed. The question is, can they find a way to be friends? And what is Kenneth? He doesn’t look like a bee: he’s a black and yellow striped figure, the same shape as a bean.

Other characters – Barbara, Dungaree, and Zippo – enter the stories, and like Kenneth, it’s difficult to know what they are. In the second story, ‘Secret Recipe!’, Kenneth is shocked when Queenie shares her top-secret honey-making recipe. Is that truly how honey is made? Then there’s the third story, ‘Super Colony’, where Kenneth and Zippo have a buzz-off contest, but Queenie shows them how it's really done!

There’s lots of energy in this book with the dialogue like that used by children as they disagree and challenge one another, but would child readers (probably about 8 to 11 years), really warm to a book about a bee and flower pollination?

The book is brightly illustrated with clear speech balloons, and lots of white space for easy reading.