KISSING THE BEE
By Kathe Koja
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007
Category: Young adult fiction
I’m into bees at the moment and my friend Jane, worried what an uninterupted diet of buzzy non-fiction might do to me, compiled a list of novels that have something to do with bees. It is a longer list than you might think; KISSING THE BEE was right at the top…
Dana is a senior in high school busy with the drama of planning for prom, helping her best friends create a fabulous costume for the festivities, writing a biology report on honey bees, and dealing with the fact that she has fallen in love with her best friend’s boyfriend. True-blue Dana manages to keep everything under control … until the moment she realizes that Emil just might love her, too. With the vivid structure of life in the hive as a backdrop, Koje weaves a tale of chaos, living, and choosing. I’d recommend this short, sweet book even if I hadn’t found this little nugget on page 48:
“Somebody even made a robot bee that can communicate with real bees …”
Seriously? Could this be true? Off to do some more poking in the 590s (you know, the non-fiction section devoted to honey bees) …