Children’s author Shanna Upchurch has found a way to bring two of her passions together: writing books and keeping bees.
And when she meets young readers, she sometimes brings the bees along.
Upchurch, a Rockwall-area author and hobbyist beekeeper, recently spoke with KETR at Brittany’s Favorite Things in Melissa. Alongside her books was a safely enclosed display containing thousands of live honeybees — an attention-getter that helps introduce children and adults to the role bees play well beyond the hive.
Her debut picture book, The Honey Bee Highway, was published by Disney in April 2026. Its inspiration came from something Upchurch learned only after she had already begun keeping bees herself.
During a conversation with a master gardener at her local library, Upchurch heard that another beekeeper had his bees “on the almonds.”
She didn’t know what that meant.
The answer introduced her to the large-scale movement of managed honeybee colonies around the United States. Beekeepers transport colonies to agricultural regions as crops bloom, providing pollination needed for food production. California’s almond crop is perhaps the best-known example, drawing colonies from across the country during its annual bloom.
“If I didn’t know that as a new beekeeper — and frankly, I’m the daughter of a plant scientist, like, how did I not know this?” Upchurch recalled. “If I didn’t know that, I wonder if other people do too.”
She took the idea to her literary agent. Upchurch said the response was simple: “Write the book.”
Within weeks, she said, The Honey Bee Highway had sold to Disney.
The book gives young readers a window into a part of American agriculture they might otherwise never see. Upchurch said her appearances have also shown her that many of the adults reading alongside those children are unfamiliar with the practice.
That opportunity to connect children with the natural world is becoming a broader theme in her writing.
“One of my main passions in writing for children is to help them reconnect with the natural world,” Upchurch told KETR.
Her next book takes that idea into a very different kind of story.
A Garden Lost, Upchurch’s middle-grade debut, is scheduled for publication by Simon & Schuster in March 2027. She describes a friend’s shorthand for the story as “The Hunger Games meets Noah’s Ark.”
The novel follows a girl trying to prove her abilities as a gardener to earn a place aboard a billionaire’s boat as the world floods. Children with specialized skills involving plants, animals and other practical knowledge are selected with an eye toward surviving the world that comes afterward.
Getting aboard, however, may not guarantee safety.
Upchurch said a sequel is already planned, shifting its focus from the young gardener at the center of A Garden Lost to a boy skilled in animal husbandry. Another picture book is also in the works, though details have not yet been announced.
For now, her published work begins with the bees in her own backyard — and with the realization that their story stretches far beyond it.
