'Sometimes bees get too big to be up in the branches, sometimes they fall and break their bones. This week both happened and Foreman said, 'Tomorrow we'll find two new bees.'
'Peony lives with her sister and grandfather on a fruit farm outside the city. In a world where real bees are extinct, the quickest, bravest kids climb the fruit trees and pollinate the flowers by hand. All Peony really wants is to be a bee. 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, and all Peony's grit and quick thinking might not 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.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Unit Suitable For
AC: Year 7 (NSW Stage 4)
Themes
belonging, dreams, family, freedom, friendship, identity, survival, the environment, the loss of innocence
General Capabilities
Critical and creative thinking, Digital literacy, Ethical understanding, Intercultural understanding, Literacy, Personal and social capability
'When award-winning children's book author Bren MacDibble watched her Melbourne home burn three years ago, she could never have known how much her life would change — for the better.' (Summary)
'From Armageddon to Ragnarok and the Rapture, humans persist in imagining the end of the world. The religious term is eschatology, and the literary terms are many. Some are jocular (Disaster Porn), or precisely denote a sub-genre (Post-Apocalypse, Solarpunk). Climate change or Anthropocene fiction is the latest variant on the theme, and if we believe our scientists — and woe betide us if we do not — these may be the final words. The end of the world as we know it approacheth, and nobody is feeling fine. Even the denialists feel the heat of the sand around their heads.' (Introduction)
'From Armageddon to Ragnarok and the Rapture, humans persist in imagining the end of the world. The religious term is eschatology, and the literary terms are many. Some are jocular (Disaster Porn), or precisely denote a sub-genre (Post-Apocalypse, Solarpunk). Climate change or Anthropocene fiction is the latest variant on the theme, and if we believe our scientists — and woe betide us if we do not — these may be the final words. The end of the world as we know it approacheth, and nobody is feeling fine. Even the denialists feel the heat of the sand around their heads.' (Introduction)
'When award-winning children's book author Bren MacDibble watched her Melbourne home burn three years ago, she could never have known how much her life would change — for the better.' (Summary)
