Written and Illustrated by Shawn Harris
2026 ALA Notable Children’s Book
Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025
School Library Journal Best Book of 2025
Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2025
Booklist Editors’ Choice
2026 CLEL Bell Picture Book Award winner (Read category)
2026 Indiana Early Literacy Firefly Award nominee
2026 Iowa Bridge to Reading Picture Book Award nominee
2026 Missouri Building Block Picture Book Award nominee
Society of Illustrators Original Art selection
CALIBA Golden Poppy Award finalist
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best
Smithsonian Magazine Best Children’s Book of the Year
ALSC 2026 Summer Reading List selection
Northern California Book Award for Younger Readers shortlist
★ “A caregiver and little one find themselves transforming. In Harris’ appealingly thick-lined, childlike illustrations, the brown-skinned parent and youngster hold a book between them (tellingly named Let’s Be Bees) as the adult says invitingly, “Let’s buzz.” Next thing you know, the two have cast aside their restrictive human shapes and are buzzing through the air together as a pair of bees. The duo appear as birds on another spread; the parent urges, “Let’s chirp.” What follows is a series of animals, objects, and even concepts (at one point, the two become “the Earth” and decide to “make every sound”). It all comes to a satisfying finish when both characters transform into the parent (the child sports a mustache and beard) and then into the kid (the adult looks especially ridiculous with a comparatively small head atop a muscular body). The narrative concludes with both eager to do it all “AGAIN!” Through a simplicity that can be difficult to capture so well on the page, this tale models marvelous parental playtime behavior, even suggesting how adults might read this very story with small children. Each page is filled with different ways of making fun sounds. Harris’ ability to connect with children on their own level, while also being unafraid to get a little weird in the process, brings to mind such superb titles as Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd’s Goodnight Moon.
Let’s be readers and explore this book together—again and again.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
★ “The ebullience pours out from every page, and read-aloud sessions may never be the same.”
—School Library Journal, Starred Review
★ “Simple figures outlined in energetic black crayon burst with energy as the calls of many animals next emerge across spreads (“Let’s RATTLE”; “Let’s CROW”). At the end, the light-brown-skinned adult and child mimic each other (“Let’s be me... let’s be you”) by way of wrapping up this endearing celebration of voice and noise. In a sly, self-referential twist, the book the pair is reading—Let’s Be Bees—invites the audience into mimicry not just of the natural world but of the characters themselves."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
★ "Acclaimed author/illustrator and Caldecott Honor winner Harris pairs his simple, lyrical text with bright, vibrant colors in bold, childlike crayon strokes, with softly rounded shapes sustaining the cozy, endearing vibe. Certain to inspire further imaginative explorations with its playful, participatory fun, this joyful celebration of shared make-believe conjures endless possibilities for whimsical delight, inviting readers to return “again! again!”"
—Booklist, Starred Review
“It’s telling that the title of this deceptively simple book by Harris, a Caldecott Medal honoree, doesn’t try to cram in the word “pretend.” The father and son in this book aren’t pretending: They are embodying. During imaginative play, the pair fully transform — becoming bees, yes, but also trees, weather and a whole host of animals. Sometimes love is best expressed in shared silliness. Bright crayon illustrations add softness and humor.”
—The New York Times
"Bold, comical crayon illustrations set the tone for a boisterous game of pretend and its noisy cacophony of sounds. . . . Surprising with every page-turn, the visuals explode into a series of immersive double-page spreads with speech bubbles full of onomatopoeia. In a climactic feat, the grownup and child attempt to be Earth and make all the sounds at once."
—The Horn Book
"Readers of Shawn Harris's Caldecott Honor-winning Have You Ever Seen a Flower? have every reason to hope for another effervescent, imagination-stoking fantasia, and that's precisely what they get with Let's Be Bees, a picture book full of noises that isn't really a book about noises. . . .
Let's Be Bees features bold and chunky illustrations that Harris created with crayons, and the fuzzy outlines seem to invite the physical adaptations that the text requests. The book may well provoke noisemaking from the littlest readers to match the adult's and child's efforts, and when the caretaker finally pulls everything together and says, "Let's make every sound," it's not hard to imagine readers of all ages letting it rip. . . . [T]he sort of thrill ride that readers can expect from Shawn Harris."
—Shelf Awareness