Set in a future Australia in a time when there are no bees and children are employed to scramble through the fruit trees with feather wands, like the pear farmers of Hanyuan in China do today. Peony wants to be a bee, a hand pollinator. She’s light, fast, and even though she’s a year too young, she’s going to be the best bee the farm has ever seen…except when you’re only 9, it’s hard to get everyone around you to go along with your plan. A beautiful and fierce novel for middle grade readers, ‘How to Bee’ explores an all-too-possible dystopian social landscape with an intensely compelling and original voice.

Read a sample here