Perfect Picture Book Friday AND Book Birthday: THE DOG WHO SAVED THE BEES Plus Giveaway

Posted on August 1, 2025 by viviankirkfield

Well, dear friends, this is a very special post!!! It’s a double your pleasure/double your fun because it’s a Happy Book Birthday for this book…PLUS, it’s a Perfect Picture Book Friday also!!!

THE DOG WHO SAVED THE BEES

Written by Stephanie Gibeault

Illustrated by David Hohn

Published by Sleeping Bear Press (August 1, 2025)

Why I Love This Book:
1. I love stories that are inspired by true events!
2. I love stories where the text engages young readers…and encourages them to get in touch with protecting our planet!
3. I love stories that have glorious illustrations!

This Perfect Picture Book Friday/Book Birthday post includes quite a bit from author Stephanie Gibeault…I’m grateful to her for stopping by to chat and share.

ME: Hello Stephanie! Thank you so much for giving us your time…and for the generous giveaway of a copy of THE DOG WHO SAVED THE BEES…and for telling us about this fabulous new book of yours. Can you tell us what the book is about…and how you came to write it…and how we can get a copy of our own?

STEPHANIE:
Thank you so much for having me, Vivian. It’s always a pleasure to stop by your blog.
Summary of book:
Cybil Preston needs a dog. But not just any dog. She needs a dog to help her with her
work. Cybil is a beehive inspector who works to ensure the health of commercial
beehives in Maryland. Hundreds of hives are shipped across the country as farmers
need bees to pollinate their crops. Without the bees, there wouldn’t be foods like apples,
almonds, and strawberries. But the bees must be healthy to be shipped, and there’s a
deadly disease, foulbrood, that is highly contagious. If even one infected hive left the
state, entire bee populations could be wiped out. Dogs, with their ultrasensitive sense of
smell, can sniff out even the tiniest scent of foulbrood in a hive. A well-trained, focused
detection dog can inspect 50 hives in 10 minutes. Work that would take Cybil an entire
day to do. When Cybil meets Mack, an unruly and lonely dog, she wonders if she has
found her canine colleague. Can rambunctious Mack be trained to meet this important
challenge? Readers of all ages will enjoy this warmly illustrated true story of Cybil and
Mack as they work to save the bees.

Inspiration:
Thank you, Vivian, for celebrating The Dog Who Saved the Bees with me! This is a
book of my heart, so I’m overjoyed to see it out in the world. And David Hohn’s
illustrations are incredible. The first time I saw them, I cried.
The path to publication for this story started in 2018 when I first met Cybil Preston, the
apiary inspector in the book. I interviewed her about her sniffer dog Mack for an article I
wrote for the American Kennel Club. After I sent the article in, I couldn’t stop thinking
about Cybil and Mack’s story. Before she rescued him, Mack was living all alone in a
garage. He was untrained and unruly, but Cybil couldn’t bear to leave him in that
situation. So she took him home and began months and months of training. First, she
had to teach this easily distracted dog just to listen and focus. Then Mack needed to
learn to detect the scent of foulbrood, a deadly bee disease. Eventually, Mack became
the only certified foulbrood scent detection dog in the United States! After working for
the Maryland Department of Agriculture for nine years, Mack retired last summer. He’s
now enjoying a life of leisure on Cybil’s farm.
The story of Cybil’s determination and Mack’s transformation pulled at my heart, and I
just knew I needed to share it with young readers. Thankfully, Cybil was on board for
countless interviews. Over the years, I tried many approaches to this biography,
including a middle grade version. Eventually, after loads of revisions (a special thank
you to my critique group The Word Weavers) I received an offer from Sleeping Bear
Press in April of 2023.

ME: Oh, this is wonderful, Stephanie. And dear friends, here’s a little bit about Stephanie and illustrator

Here’s a little bit about Stephanie:
Stephanie Gibeault is an award-winning author of children’s picture books and middle
grade nonfiction including Making Sense of Dog Senses (a Eureka! Honor book),
Calculating Chimpanzees, Brainy Bees, and Other Animals with Mind-Blowing
Mathematical Abilities (a Mathical Honor book and Best STEM Book by the NSTA), and
Dogs vs. Humans: A Showdown of the Senses among others. As a former biologist with
a Master of Science in animal behavior, Stephanie used to spend her time grunting with
gorillas and stinking like marmoset monkeys. Years later, being a certified professional
dog trainer meant being covered in fur and drool. Now she spends her days just outside
of Toronto, Canada, sharing her love of dogs and other animals through her writing.
Find out more at stephaniegibeault.com.
Social Media Links:
Bluesky: @stephaniegibeault.bsky.social
Instagram: @stephanie_gibeault
Purchase Links:
Blue Heron Books (my local indie in Uxbridge, Ontario)
Bookshop.org
Barnes & Noble
Walmart
Amazon Canada
Amazon US

And here’s a little bit about the illustrator:
David Hohn is the illustrator of Just Like Beverly: A Biography of Beverly Cleary, which garnered starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Thank you for spending your precious time with us today, dear friends! And please remember to leave a comment for a chance to WIN a copy of THE DOG WHO SAVED THE BEES…you get one ticket in the giveaway hat for the comment, and if you share on social media, you get another ticket…so please share widely…that’s a wonderful way to help new books get discovered by parents and teachers and the kids who will love this book!

This is the dog who inspired the book!!!

Happy Book Birthday: MY NAME IS AI LIN

Posted on July 1, 2025 by viviankirkfield

HURRAY! Book birthday posts are my favorite because it means we are welcoming a new book baby into the world! And this one is so special because it focuses on the importance of a child’s name…and especially in the early years, your name is a large part of your identity, who you are. And if folks mispronounce it or have trouble saying it and stumble each time they try, that can make a child feel like there is something wrong with them. I’m so happy to welcome Maria Wen Adcock and her debut picture book, MY NAME IS AI LIN, illustrated by Yu Ting Cheng, and published by Sleeping Bear Press…it launches TODAY!!!

In this empowering story, one child shows that by making the effort to properly pronounce someone’s name, we send the welcoming message that everyone is worthy of respect and dignity.

When Ai Lin starts school, none of her classmates can say her name. The children make several attempts, but they still cannot pronounce it properly. They ask Ai Lin if they can just call her by another name. It’s not that important, right? But Ai Lin knows the significance of her Chinese name. No, it can’t be changed. Her name is part of her identity and heritage. Her name was chosen not only for what it means, but also for how it sounds. It ties her to her family—present and past—and to its traditions.

When Ai Lin shares her family history with her classmates, they come to understand that a name can be a person’s story, special and unique. Ai Lin’s name, and all that it means and stands for, is as personal as a fingerprint, as distinct as a snowflake.

And we are so lucky…author Maria has stopped by to share the story behind the story…what inspired her to write this.

ME: Hello Maria! Thank you so much for visiting Picture Books Help Kids Soar! And CONGRATULATIONS!!! What a beautiful book this is! And an important one! Can you tell us why you wrote it?

MARIA:
The idea for this book came about because I know many people who have assumed “American” names for various reasons. Sometimes they wanted to fit in, so they changed their names. For example, “Jose” became “Joe.” Other times, someone else asked them to change their names because to make it easier for them to remember or say – this is what happens to Ai Lin in my story. And then there were other times when it was not their choice, such as with my dad. When he immigrated to America, someone in the processing center told him he needed an American name and picked out “William” for him. I’m guessing it’s because my dad’s last name, Wen, started with a “W”, so the guy chose a first name with the same letter. My dad had no say in it.

For parents and children with diverse backgrounds, I hope they will be proud of their names. If it’s an uncommon one, they should know they don’t need to change it to make other people feel more comfortable unless they want to. Their names are their identities.

For those who are curious about other people’s names that are different than what they’re used to, I’d encourage them to make an effort to pronounce someone’s name correctly. It’s okay to ask someone how to pronounce their name if their not sure how to say it.

Oh, that’s wonderful, Maria! Thank you for sharing all of this!

And thank you, dear blog readers, for spending your precious time with us. I hope you love this book as much as I do…and please remember that books become a success and get into the hands of the children who need them when we:

Buy the book
Review the book
Tell friends about the book – please share the post on your social media
Ask your local library to purchase copies for their shelves

Happy 4th of July week and weekend, dear friends. Please stay safe and share positivity!