How to Bee
4/5
()
About this ebook
A story about family, loyalty, kindness and bravery, set against an all-too-possible future where climate change has forever changed the way we live.
In a world where real bees are extinct, the quickest, bravest kids climb the fruit trees and pollinate the flowers by hand. Peony lives with her sister, Magnolia, and her grandfather on a fruit farm outside the city. All Peony really wants is to be a bee. Even though she is only nine — and bees must be ten — Peony already knows all there is to know about being a bee and she is determined to achieve her dream.
Life on the farm is a scrabble, but there is enough to eat and a place to sleep, and there is love. Then Peony’s mother arrives to take her away from everything she has ever known. Peony is taken to the city to work for a wealthy family. Will Peony’s grit and quick thinking be enough to keep her safe?
How to Bee is a beautiful and fierce novel for younger readers, and the voice of Peony will stay with you long after you read the last page.
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6
Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.
Bren MacDibble
BREN MACDIBBLE was raised on farms all over New Zealand, so is an expert about being a kid on the land. After 20 years in Melbourne, Bren recently sold everything, and now lives and works on a bus travelling around Australia. In 2018, How to Bee — her first novel for younger readers — won the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers, the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature, and the New Zealand Book Awards Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. She recently published The Dog Runner. Bren also writes for young adults under the name Cally Black.
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Reviews for How to Bee
13 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a great book for kids. It is not a great book for me, because there is a significant plot point that is Not Good.There is some fascinating world building going on here, with the ways that dealing with pollination happens in a world (country?) without bees (with my science hat on, I'm all like 'honey bees are not the only pollinators', but I get that this isn't the place for that nuance). The viewpoint character is completely believably not quite ten; some of the situations they get in to are a tad terrifying as a parent, but will probably come across as exciting to a middle grade reader. content notes (spoilers)- domestic violence- parental death- kidnapping by a family member
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There are no more bees, and so children have taken over their role of pollinating the flowers. 9-year-old Peony lives with her grandfather and sister on one of the fruit farms where she is employed as a 'pest', while their mother works and lives in the city, earning money to purchase medicine and other necessities. The duties of a 'pest' are to pick insects from the fruit, but Peony so longs to be a 'bee' and pollinate the flowers. Meanwhile, her mother has become pregnant to an abusive man, and insists the Peony go with her to the city to work for a wealthy family. The contrast between rich and poor is more startling there. Peony is a perceptive child and her journey is undertaken with determination and zest. A great read.