When 11yo Edmund draws insects, he doesn’t expect to fall through his sketchbook into their world. Now one-inch tall, Edmund must rally a band of bickering bugs (and unlikely friends) to stop his greedy father from bulldozing his beloved apple orchard and building a golf course. The mission? Impossible. The bugs? Questionably sane. The risks? Just eternal smallness and possible extermination.
Eleven-year-old Edmund is as insignificant as a gnat to his millionaire parents—and his wicked governess makes sure he knows it, locking him up in finger-stocks at least once a week. His only refuge is the apple orchard, where he sketches bugs and dreams of escape.
When a royal bumblebee from the Trigona dynasty dusts Edmund’s drawing with magic pollen, it opens a portal to the insect world. Edmund faceplants in his sketchbook and shrinks to beetle-size.
Edmund befriends the very creatures he’s drawn and is horrified to learn about his father’s diabolical plan to bulldoze his beloved orchard and build a luxury golf course. Edmund rallies the bugs to battle—until his scheming governess steals his sketchbook and traps him in miniature form. No matter how small his voice, Edmund must convince the townspeople to stop the development and save his new many-legged friends. Best case, he stays small forever. Worst case—he gets exterminated too.
GNATO: THE GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF TRUE-BUGS AND OTHERS is an illustrated middle grade contemporary novel with elements of fabulism. It is the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids meets the environmental and coming of age themes of Lynne Kelly’s The Secret Language of Birds, with a dash of humor similar to Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.
