The Danger of Small Things

Imagine a world where honeybees have died out entirely—a patriarchal society gripped by famine, stripped of art, books, and plays. Girls are sent away from home, forced to hand-pollinate crops with brushes and married off as soon as they can be. In this world lives Jess, alongside her friends Cass, Deva, and Ruth. But can one fourteen-year-old girl really spark a revolution, even when she knows the system is dangerous?

This is a story about empowering female friendships and the power of imagination in dark times. With a urgent environmental message at its heart—did you know that if honeybees became extinct, humans would have only four years to live?—Lewis crafts a love letter to her daughter and to all young people facing an uncertain future. Hand pollination is already being practised in parts of China, where an estimated 80% of the native wild honebee population has been lost. The stakes have never felt more real.

As Lewis herself explains, she wanted to "comfort and empower" young readers and show them that "our greatest weapon in a floundering world is the imagination."