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Start giftingHow to Bee
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreHow to Bee is a beautiful, fierce and ultimately hopeful dystopian novel, set against an all-too-possible future where the bees are extinct, and it is up to the quickest and bravest kids to pollinate the flowers by hand.
Peony lives with her sister, Magnolia, and their 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?
Bren MacDibble was raised on farms all over New Zealand, so she is an expert about being a kid on the land. After twenty years in Melbourne, Bren recently sold everything, and now lives and works on a bus travelling around Australia. 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.
Katherine Littrell is a Sydney-based audiobook narrator who studied English literature at Bryn Mawr College. She has lived in the United States and the UK, but is glad to be back home in Australia, where she enjoys knitting, making furniture, and talking out loud to herself in small spaces.
Reviews
“As an example of how to write anthropocene. It is exemplary.”
“The narration captures the book’s mood perfectly, due to Katherine Littrell’s performance. Her beautiful Australian accent doesn’t hurt, either.”
“This story, set in a dystopian landscape, reminds us of the vital role played by the bees that we take so much for granted, but there is even more to the story than environmental issues. We see extreme poverty and domestic violence but also courage and the ultimate insignificance of material comforts when compared to the love of friends and family.”
“In near-future Australia, ‘bee’ is both a noun and a verb…A vivid futuristic setting enfolds a fundamentally nostalgic plot.”
“The coming-of-age narrative tracking Peony’s journey is deeply felt—especially when her mother puts her in dangerous situations where she must persevere…[A] middle grade tale of courage, with a unique story line that magnifies a realistic threat to one of nature’s most helpful insects.”
“MacDibble’s award-winning debut children’s novel is a refreshing breath of organic, floral-scented air. She has created a recognizable, unforgettable voice in Peony, who is a vibrant personality…Readers will root for her and her friends throughout their challenges and adventures, from surviving in the city to being promoted on the farm.”
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