Humble Bumble Miriama Kamo Craig Phillips
Humble Bumble (2025)
Miriama Kamo, ill. Craig Phillips
Picture book, paperback, 32 pages
English language pb edition: Humble
Bumble: ISBN 978 1 77543 927 1
Māori language pb edition: Te Pī Māhaki: ISBN 978 1 77543 928 8
In Humble Bumble Miriama Kamo has written
a lovely fable about cooperation and working together.
‘Ko Humble Bumble ahau. I am Humble
Bumble.’’
Humble Bumble is a worker bee and so she
goes out each morning with the other bumble bees, such as Bumble Pīpī and Bumble Brie, to gather pollen from the flowers.
Unfortunately, Humble Bumble doesn’t live
up to her name. When she sees that Bumble Brie has gathered a heavy load of
pollen (puehu), Humble Bumble flies back to the nest, shouting, ‘Kia reri
koutou – get ready everyone! We’re bringing a lot of puehu.’’ As the pollen
is unloaded, Humble Bumble manages to take all the credit, while Bumble Brie
has done all the work.
Enjoying the praise of the other worker
bees, Humble Bumble tries the same method again when she spots Bumble Whī – the fastest bee – with a heavy load of
pollen. By loudly announcing the arrival of more pollen, Humble Bumble gets the
credit for Bumble Whī’s work. ‘Poor Bumble Whī was ignored.’
The
admiration goes to Humble Bumble’s head. She marks all the flowers in the next
field as having been collected, so that she can have them to herself. The other
bees have to fly to fields further away. Humble Bumble is proud of what she has
achieved.
‘But
I am too humble to brag,’ she called out proudly.
Exhausted, Humble Bumble falls asleep in
a flower with half the field uncollected. She is woken by Pī Kuīni, the Queen Bee, and the rest of the bumblebees. ‘A field this big
needs dozens of bumbles … A whole day of collecting has been wasted!’ Then,
through their example, they teach Humble Bumble the importance of working
together.
‘Eharu taku toa, e te toa takitahi,
engari he toa takitini. My success is not mine alone but the success of many.’
Miriama Kamo has woven several
traditional Māori
sayings into her text, at appropriate places, to point up Humble Bumble’s
behaviour (or misbehaviour). The moral is always clear.
‘Kāore te kūmara e kōrero ana mō tōna ake reka. The kumara never speaks of
its own sweetness.’
Illustrator Craig Phillips has created a
beautiful and colourful world of flowers for the bumble bees. He has also
mastered the tricky feat of showing creatures with four arms. While the various
four-armed worker bees may look the same in their matching black and yellow
stripes, he has given them variations in hair style and antennae so the reader
can distinguish them. Humble Bumble has even tucked a little blue flower into
her head fuzz just to suggest that, if she weren’t so modest, she’d be the
best.
This is an illustrated story with lots of
words but the text is large and well set out. (Designer: Vida Kelly)
Some common Māori words are used in the
text (just as in ordinary New Zealand speech). The traditional sayings are each
provided with their own translation when they occur.
A useful Glossary explains the
significance of the various Māori phrases and sayings.
A remarkable fact page, Get the Buzz on
Bumblebees, provides some surprising facts about Humble and her friends.
A Māori language edition, Te Pī Māhaki, is also available.
Trevor Agnew
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