What is Kris Stephens reading?
If the premise of the book is magical, has lurking characters, or maybe some time travel, Kris is in. Kris is the floor manager at Watermark Books. She's been at the store since 2012
Somehow, I’ve gotten a reputation for liking bees. It’s not wrong-- I think they’re fascinating. So when The Honey Bus crossed my desk, I was pretty excited. And rightly so.
Meredith May comes from a broken family. Her parents split up when she was five or six, her mother fell into a pretty dark depression that left her bed ridden for years, and her father remained half a country away with his new wife and family, available only for short summer vacations. Her grandmother, who took on the role of provider for Meredith, her younger brother, and her mother, had only enough love for her bed-ridden daughter. Only Meredith’ grandfather was able to provide any real sort of emotional support as she grew up. And he was an amateur beekeeper.
Many of Meredith’s life stories are bookended by her education with the hives and in the honey bus. As she learned more about how to socialize with the kids at school, her grandpa taught her how each of the bees had to communicate with each other to keep the hive alive. As she learned to mitigate life around her mother as she spiraled rapidly out of control, Meredith also learned about the queen bee, and the symbiosis therein. And when it was time to start thinking of life past high school, her grandfather showed her the scout bees: bees that look for new places to start a new hive when the old one becomes too crowded.
This is partially a coming of age story, but also one of survival.
Such a fun look at things that happened behind the scenes earlier. I'm hopefully looking forward to more from this collaboration.