diff --git a/src/babashka/main.clj b/src/babashka/main.clj
index fbc1c75d..5973a71d 100644
--- a/src/babashka/main.clj
+++ b/src/babashka/main.clj
@@ -587,7 +587,11 @@ Use -- to separate script command line args from bb command line args.
       (let [cmd-line-args args]
         (parse-opts (seq (map str (concat cmd-line-args command-line-args)))))
       :shell
-      (let [args (into (vec args) command-line-args)]
+      (let [args (if (and (= 1 (count args))
+                          (string? (first args)))
+                   (p/tokenize (first args))
+                   args)
+            args (into (vec args) command-line-args)]
         {:exec (fn []
                  [nil
                   (-> (p/process args {:inherit true})
diff --git a/test/babashka/bb_edn_test.clj b/test/babashka/bb_edn_test.clj
index 416edc08..4419df27 100644
--- a/test/babashka/bb_edn_test.clj
+++ b/test/babashka/bb_edn_test.clj
@@ -42,7 +42,14 @@
     (with-config {:tasks {:clean [:shell "rm" (str temp-file)]}}
       (is (fs/exists? temp-file))
       (bb :clean)
-      (is (not (fs/exists? temp-file))))))
+      (is (not (fs/exists? temp-file)))))
+  (let [temp-dir (fs/create-temp-dir)
+        temp-file (fs/create-file (fs/path temp-dir "temp-file.txt"))]
+    (testing "tokenization"
+      (with-config {:tasks {:clean [:shell (str "rm " (str temp-file))]}}
+        (is (fs/exists? temp-file))
+        (bb :clean)
+        (is (not (fs/exists? temp-file)))))))
 
 (deftest sequential-task-test
   (testing ":and-do"