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The Danger of Small Things
The YA debut from an award-winning and bestselling Welsh storyteller
By Caryl Lewis
Table of Contents
About The Book
Set in a world where bees are at risk of extinction, this startling YA dystopia is perfect for fans of Meg Rosoff’s How I live Now and Sarah Crossan, described by the author as a love letter to her daughter.
Imagine a world where honeybees have died out. It’s a patriarchal world where famines are rife. It’s a world without art, without books, without plays. Girls are sent away from home, forced to pollinate crops by hand with brushes and to marry as soon as they can. Inhabiting this world is Jess and her friends Cass, Deva, and Ruth. But even if one fourteen‑year‑old knows that brushes weren’t invented for pollinating, can she really stoke a revolution?
Caryl Lewis said: ‘As a beekeeper, I am acutely aware of the interconnectedness of everything and have long been frightened of how we, as humans, set ourselves apart from nature. We do not seem to understand that in destroying nature, we destroy ourselves. My daughter is growing up in what feels like a much more hostile environment facing climate instability, the rise of misogyny and the roll back of women’s bodily rights. I wanted to comfort and empower her and let her see that our greatest weapon in a floundering world is the imagination.'
Imagine a world where honeybees have died out. It’s a patriarchal world where famines are rife. It’s a world without art, without books, without plays. Girls are sent away from home, forced to pollinate crops by hand with brushes and to marry as soon as they can. Inhabiting this world is Jess and her friends Cass, Deva, and Ruth. But even if one fourteen‑year‑old knows that brushes weren’t invented for pollinating, can she really stoke a revolution?
Caryl Lewis said: ‘As a beekeeper, I am acutely aware of the interconnectedness of everything and have long been frightened of how we, as humans, set ourselves apart from nature. We do not seem to understand that in destroying nature, we destroy ourselves. My daughter is growing up in what feels like a much more hostile environment facing climate instability, the rise of misogyny and the roll back of women’s bodily rights. I wanted to comfort and empower her and let her see that our greatest weapon in a floundering world is the imagination.'
About The Author
Photograph by Naomi Campbell
Caryl Lewis is an award-winning Welsh novelist, children’s writer, playwright, and screenwriter. Her breakthrough novel, Martha, Jac a Sianco, is widely regarded as a modern classic of Welsh literature and sits on the Welsh curriculum. The film adaptation (with a screenplay by Caryl) won six Welsh BAFTAs and the Spirit of the Festival Award at the Celtic Media Festival. Caryl’s other screenwriting work includes BBC/S4C thrillers Hinterland and Hidden, and she’s also the author of The Danger of Small Things. She is a visiting lecturer in creative writing at Cardiff University and lives with her family on a farm near Aberystwyth.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK (March 26, 2026)
- Length: 352 pages
- ISBN13: 9781398549302
- Ages: 14 - 99
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