The Honey Bus

Candace Thaxton's almost wistful narration sets an appropriately nostalgic tone for this beautiful, perceptive memoir. From a young age, Meredith May and her brother were emotionally rejected by their divorced, mentally ill mother and treated coldly by their grandmother. Thaxton infuses Meredith's drug-addled mother with almost hysterical insecurity and her grandmother with a harsh indifference to the children's abuse. The guiding, loving adult in their young lives was Meredith's grandfather, an eccentric and thoughtful man who raised bees and harvested their honey in an old bus. Thaxton portrays Grandpa's sensible life lessons with gentle kindness. May's insightful writing--she became a successful newspaper reporter--reveals respect and affection not only for her grandpa but also for the lessons to be learned from bees. N.M.C. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

June 1, 2019

Award-winning journalist May worked at the San Francisco Chronicle for many years, but she's also a fifth-generation beekeeper, the real thrust of this memoir. In a book compared to H Is for Hawk, she recounts how she was raised by her grandfather, an offbeat original who made honey while living in a rusty old bus. With her parents having spun apart when she was five and her mother hiding out in the bedroom, always on the edge, May bonded with her grandfather and learned the glories of nature, and particularly bees. Lots of in-house love for this one; there's a 175,000-copy first printing.

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