Title: Hour of the Bees
Author: Lindsay Eager
Pages: 360
Finished: 3/21/17
First Sentence: Something flies too close to my ear.
Summary: (Taken from Goodreads) Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them. . . .
While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina — Carol — is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she’s never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on and the heat bears down, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought. As the thin line between magic and reality starts to blur, Carol must decide for herself what is possible — and what it means to be true to her roots.
While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina — Carol — is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she’s never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on and the heat bears down, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought. As the thin line between magic and reality starts to blur, Carol must decide for herself what is possible — and what it means to be true to her roots.
Thoughts: I'm starting to get concerned. I picked these four Caudill books to read first because I thought for sure I would dislike them. And I've loved them all.
Strikes against this book - grandfather suffering from dementia and a awful sister. This last summer, my grandmother died from a long battle with various illnesses. She also suffered from dementia. I really didn't want to read about it.
But this book wasn't bad. The dementia really took second place to the unexpected fantasy. And the fantasy was lovely. I found myself completely caught up in Serge's stories wondering how real they were. I was incredibly impressed at how no one was really a good guy or a bad guy. Everyone was a very human shade of gray. At first I hated Rosie for ruining the good thing the village had, and then I switched to hating Sergio for keeping her home.
But it was the story about the village and the tree that drew me in. Book recommended for 5th grade and up.
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