Bren MacDibble author page

Bren MacDibble biography

Bren MacDibble is a children’s and science-fiction author born in Whanganui, New Zealand. She grew up on the land in New Zealand, an experience connected with the rural and environmental settings of her fiction.

How to Bee was published in 2017 and was MacDibble’s first children’s novel. The book is set in a future where real bees are extinct and children hand-pollinate fruit trees. It won the 2018 CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers, the 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature, and the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction.

A North American edition of How to Bee was released on 3 March 2020 by Groundwood, with a stated readership range of 9 to 13. MacDibble’s other children’s novels include The Dog Runner, published in 2019, and Across the Risen Sea, published in 2020. The Raven’s Song, written with Zana Fraillon, was published in 2022.