The Big Dreams of Small Creatures

Description

From Black-ish writer and director comes a whimsical and heartwarming tale where two unlikely allies band together to protect and defend the insect world from the worst enemy of all…humans.Ten-year-old Eden’s quiet life is upended when she saves a paper wasp nest from destruction and discovers, to her awe and amazement, that she and its haughty queen can talk to each other. This first conversation is the start of a grand adventure, leading Eden to The Institute for Lower Learning, a secret laboratory devoted to the peaceful coexistence of humans and insects. A turn of the 20th century mansion that has been flipped upside down into a marvelous subterranean sanctuary, the Institute is home to Tillie, its plucky, hundred-and-twenty-year-old caretaker, and a wide range of idiosyncratic insects whose antics range from the ridiculous to the sublime. The Institute is more fantastic and idyllic than Eden could’ve imagined but hidden deep within its tunnels is an old secret that could spell the end for all insects on earth.
 
Nine-year-old August, an aspiring actor and bullied third-grader, is looking for that very secret after a few disastrous encounters have left him wanting to squash every annoying bug into oblivion. After all insects are small—he is big. And if there is anything the world and the tormentors at his school have taught him—it’s that being bigger is what counts.
 
But in the world of the Institute where insects have a place of their own, both Eden and August discover being bigger isn’t necessarily better and sometimes the most courageous thing to do is to set out to make a new friend. Gail Lerner is a television and film writer/director. She has recently directed her first feature film, a reimagining of Cheaper by the Dozen, for Disney+, which will be released in February of 2022. Additionally, she has written and directed for Black-ish, Happy Endings, Ugly Betty, Grace and Frankie and Will & Grace. Her work has garnered her a Peabody Award, 6 NAACP Image Awards, and multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.  Her short film, Seraglio, which was co-written and co-directed with her dashing and talented husband, Colin Campbell, was nominated for a 2001 Academy Award.  She holds an MFA in Theater Directing from Columbia University. This is her first novel. CA

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