The Queen Bee and Me by Gillian McDunn

Meg has been friends with Beatrix (Bea) since kindergarten. She has some anxiety issues and in their small town there's limited opportunities to meet other people anyways, so it's always been easier to just go along with Bea. But they started middle school last year and Bea is... not so nice. She's always been a bit bossy, but she's taken to giving Meg the silent treatment and freezing her out of their friend group whenever she doesn't agree or go along with Bea's ideas as enthusiastically as Bea wants.

Now the two are growing even farther apart. Bea is absorbed in dance and in her desire to move to modern and contemporary styles, rather than the classical ballet her mom prefers. Meg wants to pursue her love of science and has been accepted into a special 7th grade science class. But it will mean not taking dance with Bea. Then a new girl moves to town. She's weird and quirky, has bee hives (Meg is terrified of bees) and is an immediate target for Bea and her overbearing, bullying mother. Meg is sort of interested in being friends with Hazel, but Bea makes it clear that if she "chooses" Hazel over her, Meg's social life is over.

Things get even more complicated when Bea's mother starts a campaign to get Hazel's bees banned and Meg finds herself doing a science project about bees with Hazel. Meg's parents don't seem to understand what's happening - and Meg's mother in particular has her own issues with Bea's overbearing mother. There are many stumbles as Meg struggles to make her own choices and be her own person apart from her friends, but eventually she finds herself in a happier and more mentally healthy place in her life and ready to move forward.

 I have mixed feelings about this sophomore effort from McDunn. It's true that McDunn is just a really good writer. This is spot-on about the angst and feelings and roiling worries about friendship in middle school. It's also very realistic about the handful of overbearing people who can take over in a small town and run things to suit their own narrow-minded ideas. There were many spots where I wanted to stop and say something was stereotypical, like the "quirky" new girl coming in with free and easy ways who wakes up the locals. But McDunn is such a good writer and she always tips things away from the stereotype to add a different aspect. Part of the plot of Meg's emotional growth involves her standing up not just to Bea but also to Hazel, who starts out as bossy as Bea, but in different ways. I'd say the bee aspects of the plot were an unnecessary complication and the town council meeting was very unrealistic, but small towns can - and do - devolve into endless complications over minor details like this and people are incredibly ignorant about bees. I had a whole outdoor program screaming about being stung by "bees" when they were hornets the whole time. I even caught one in a clear plastic bin to show them the difference and they STILL say "remember that time we were at the park and got stung by bees" *headdesk*.

Verdict: I think, ultimately, I would say that McDunn's skillful writing keeps this from devolving into stereotypes, but that there are so many similar books this just doesn't stand out as much as her debut novel. I'd recommend for middle school and upper elementary if you have a lot of kids who like this type of friendship-focused, more serious story, but otherwise I'd look more towards diversifying my collection with different offerings.

ISBN: 9781681197517; Published March 2020 by Bloomsbury; ARC provided by publisher; Currently testing on a sixth grader