Bren MacDibble – författare

WINNER: 2024 Best Children's Fiction, Aurealis AwardsSHORTLISTED: 2025 Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction, New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults SHORTLISTED: 2025 Fiction Prize, Environment Award for Children's LiteratureSHORTLISTED: 2025 Children's Book of the Year, WA Premier's Book AwardsThat's what my photos are. Little moments. All the good moments, the kind moments, the moments of care and love that, if you add them all together, make a life sweet.Bastienne Scull is a young orphan who lives with the local Witnesser of Miracles, Lodyma Darsey, who investigates 'miraculous events' and spins them into stories she tells at the night markets. After Lodyma's husband and elder son died of a sickness that continues to sweep the land, she sent her teenage son Osmin into the hills to live with the mountain men. That was ten years ago, and Lodyma doesn't know if he's alive or dead. And she's taken Bastienne as an apprentice to fill the void of her lost family. One day, two young boys arrive in town asking Lodyma to go on a mysterious mission to a monastery. And when Lodyma and Bastienne arrive, what they discover will change their lives.A wonderful novel, full of hope, courage, resilience and family.'A classic MacDibble: young Basti is a delight as she searches for her strength and a family in a post-apocalyptic world, leaving us with a glimmer of hope for her future and our own.' - Wendy Orr'Bren MacDibble has become well-known for her unique and heartfelt adventure novels ... and The Apprentice Witnesser, is no exception... She is particularly astute at writing timely and inventive stories exploring the impacts of climate change. [There are] plenty of twists for younger readers who enjoy a good dash of marvel and intrigue with their adventure stories. MacDibble's use of language is unparalleled, and she illustrates hope and resilience through her characters.' - Books & Publishing

From the multi award-winning Australian author of How to Bee and The Dog Runner, another original and heartfelt middle-grade fiction adventure, exploring themes of loyalty, resilience, courage and the environment. Neoma and Jag and their small community are 'living gentle lives' on high ground surrounded by the risen sea that has caused widespread devastation. When strangers from the Valley of the Sun arrive unannounced, the friends find themselves drawn into a web of secrecy and lies that endangers their whole way of life. Soon, daring, loyal Neoma must set off on a solo mission across the risen sea, determined to rescue her best friend and find the truth that will save her village.

Honour Book, Australian Children’s Book Council Book of the Year 2023. The Raven’s Song alternates between the stories of Phoenix, who lives in a near-future world impacted by climate change and a devastating pandemic; and Shelby, one hundred years in the future in a post-pandemic, post-pollution, post-city world where each community is exactly three hundred and fifty people sustainably subsisting on seven hundred hectares. The story of a world that is beginning to fall apart, and a chance to see it all put back together, The Raven’s Song is a vision of hope for the future, seen through the eyes of the young people who will fight for it.

Honour Book, Australian Children’s Book Council Book of the Year 2023. The Raven’s Song alternates between the stories of Phoenix, who lives in a near-future world impacted by climate change and a devastating pandemic; and Shelby, one hundred years in the future in a post-pandemic, post-pollution, post-city world where each community is exactly three hundred and fifty people sustainably subsisting on seven hundred hectares. The story of a world that is beginning to fall apart, and a chance to see it all put back together, The Raven’s Song is a vision of hope for the future, seen through the eyes of the young people who will fight for it.

Set in a future Australia in a time when there are no bees and children are employed to scramble through the fruit trees with feather wands, like the pear farmers of Hanyuan in China do today. Peony wants to be a bee, a hand pollinator. She's light, fast, and even though she's a year too young, she's going to be the best bee the farm has ever seen...except when you're only 9, it's hard to get everyone around you to go along with your plan. A beautiful and fierce novel for middle grade readers, 'How to Bee' explores an all-too-possible dystopian social landscape with an intensely compelling and original voice.