Kia Ora,
I hope you're all doing okay today.
I want to share three books with you, written by multiple award-winning author, Bren MacDibble. Bren was born in Whanganui, New Zealand. She has lived in "a muddle of backwater villages, farms and towns in heartland New Zealand" (http://macdibble.com/about.html). Bren lives in Australia currently. After a house fire, she moved into a bus.
How to Bee, The Dog Runner and Across the Risen Sea, are written for teens. I would recommend them to the stronger readers at our school, who are not overly sensitive. All three books tackle a different aspect of anticipated environmental issues - through the telling of an exciting narrative.
How to Bee:
In a futuristic world, where bees are extinct, the children of poorer farming communities vie for positions as "Bees". The nimble and quick tree climbers use feathered "wands" and pollen carrying satchels to pollinate the fruit trees by hand. Immediately the reader is thrust into a different world, with unique challenges and unusual sayings.
I was initially hooked in, trying to interpret this new and strange world. Peony is a delightfully lively girl. She is nine, and you need to be ten to be a bee pollinator. Her life's ambition is to qualify as a "Bee". Her character is instantly likeable.
She is unaware of how poor they are on the communal farm, and of how simply they live until she is snatched and taken to the city by her mother, who is looking for a better life. Like the Hunger Games, the divide between the rich and poor is striking. There are moments of domestic abuse which may be unsettling for the more sensitive reader - however, the book is not without its lighter moments.
I enjoyed the friendship Peony develops with Esmeralda. It reminded me a little of the Secret Garden. Esmeralda is cosseted and afraid of the outdoors. Feisty Peony helps to draw her out of her shell, while Esmeralda learns to be brave and helps Peony back to the place she calls home.
Here are some teacher resources if you would like to explore this book further:
Book reviews for the next two books will follow soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment
This is a put-up zone :)