Bertha and the Beeman

Bertha and the Beeman is a humorous story about two neighbours with very different ideas about bees.  For the Beeman they are “lovely,” but for Bertha they are “nasty,” until Bertha has an accident and is saved by the bees and the Beeman.  Several repeating language patterns tell the story in dialogue and simple narrative.

The story has a beginning, middle end text structure.  All the sentences follow a similar pattern and are largely predictable.  Quotation marks, exclamation marks, ellipses, and commas are used. Bold face is used for emphasis.  Large display type is used in text and art to enhance meaning.  Bertha and the Beeman are capitalized names.  Humorous illustrations support the text directly and add meaning.

The onomatopoetic words buzz, kerplunk, splash, and crash are used.  The contraction that’s is used.  Interest words include buzz, clapped, flapped, slapped, nasty, and splash.

This title is from the Sails Literacy series. Hook readers and ignite their curiosity - over 700 levelled texts with bright, colourful, sophisticated designs.