The Boy who Lost His Bumble by Trudi Esberger (Child's Play)

With the long hot summer, we often found ourselves disappearing into the wild countryside immersing ourselves in nature. Charlotte absolutely loves our trips out to BBONT or National Trust places, and you can read all about our buzzy bee adventures over at my wife's blog - Can I Walk Mummy. On one trip, we had a mission in mind and when Child's Play got in touch with us to tell us about an amazing new book called "The Boy Who Lost His Bumble" we thought we'd tie in our review with some important bee-themed posts. Check out our homage to bees when we tried to photograph them on a trip to Waddesdon Manor.

Let's get back to the book though. Not only is it a wonderful homage to arguably our most important insect species, but a celebration of the four seasons - and the bee-buzzy boy who absolutely loves his garden.

The boy recognises that bees are so important to our flowers, our fruit and veg - and their hard work pollinating all our plants means that we can live and breathe on our verdant planet. This awesome little chap loves his bees so much that he gives them all names (and draws great little pics of them so we know which is which!)

As the seasons change though, the boy notices that the bees slowly disappear. In fact one chilly autumn day they're nowhere to be seen. Is this the last we'll see of Holly, Sue and Amir? You know what we're going to say - you'll have to read this utterly fantastic story to find out :)

Charlotte loves the story very much, and also loves the fact that we get to learn a lot more about bees at the end of the book, just how important they are, and also how you can grow your own plants to attract these busy little insects to your garden too.

Charlotte's best bit: Holly and Sue are her faves, and she loves the various ways the little boy tries to woo the bees back to his garden

Daddy's Favourite bit: A superb little story, and lots of interesting facts to give children an insight into just how important our buzzy busy bee friends really are to us

(Kindly sent to us for review by Child's Play Books)