The Buzz on Style

It’s hard enough to get dressed when you’ve got two legs; when you’ve got six, the challenges are tripled. In a new children’s book, A Season to Bee, a Stylish Book of Colors (Penguin Random House), insects, not people, are the fashionistas, paparazzi, and models. There is even a waspish editor, Miss V. McQueen, of BUZZ fashion magazine, who issues Diana Vreeland-esque proclamations: “Stop ‘em dead like the ladybug in spring…wear RED!”  Carlos Aponte, adjunct faculty in Fashion Illustration, who illustrated and wrote this adorable story, explains how he got the idea: “I grew up surrounded by insects—spiders, ants, bees, wasps, and crickets! I think I was the only kid who didn’t kill them; I protected them.” Each color in Miss McQueen’s favored fashion palette is given a full-page illustration, complete with amusingly dressed bugs, but in the end, she counsels, “the most important thing to BEE is….you!” The message of self-acceptance was what mattered to Aponte. “I tried to be many things to fit in the world of fashion, but I could only be me,” he says. “It’s a simple, universal message to every kid who dreams of contributing to this industry.”

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