Publisher’s Description of Honeybees and Frenemies

Twelve-year-old Flor faces a bittersweet summer with a pageant, a frenemy, and a hive full of honey.

It’s the summer before eighth grade and Flor is stuck at home and working at her family’s mattress store, while her best friend goes off to band camp (probably to make new friends). It becomes even worse when she’s asked to compete in the local honey pageant. This means Flor has to spend the summer practicing her talent (recorder) and volunteering (helping a recluse bee-keeper) with Candice, her former friend who’s still bitter about losing the pageant crown to Flor when they were in second grade. And she can’t say no.

Then there’s the possibility that Flor and her family are leaving to move in with her mom’s family in New Jersey. And with how much her mom and dad have been fighting lately, is it possible that her dad may not join them? Flor can’t let that happen. She has a lot of work to do.

Rebecca’s Thoughts

Honeybees and Frenemies is chock full of authentic middle-grade voice and emotion. As your awesome summer is about to start, what could be worse than finding out that your best friend will be heading to her dream band camp rather than hanging out with you? To add insult to injury, the pageant that ruined Flor’s life 3 years ago is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an all-star reunion–winners from the past 10 years competing for the crown. Flor’s looking for her way out but not finding it.

Could anything possibly make this summer any worse? Unfortunately, Flor’s about to find out that the answer is yes.

Middle-school summers come with growing freedom but also bigger problems. With fully 3-dimensional characters, heartbreak and lessons learned, Kristi Wientge helps 4th-6th-grade girls feel understood as they navigate their summers. A perfect vacation read! Highly recommended!

I received an advanced reader copy of Honeybees and Frenemies in exchange for an honest review.

Honeybees and Frenemies will be released on June 4th. You can check it out on Goodreads, or pre-order via Indiebound, Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

If Honeybees and Frenemies sounds like a book you’d like, you should check out our recent interview with Kristi, as well as her first book–Karma Khullar’s Mustache. You might also be interested in other middle grade titles we’ve reviewed recently on the Winged Pen:

August Isle by Ali Standish
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
Pink Hair and Other Terrible ideas by Andrea Pyros