Hour of the Bees

"Hour Of The Bees", the third book in my journey across fictional America, takes me to the Painted Desert in New Mexico.

New Mexico is one of my favourite States. It's managed to keep its wild beauty. The Painted Desert is one of the most spectacular places I've visited. It manages to be both stark and welcoming, as if it's daring you to have the courage to live there

Despite this, I found myself delaying starting "Hour Of The Bees". I even considered finding an alternative book in my TBR pile to continue my journey.

Why?

Well, the blurb sounds a little miserable, a twelve year old girl forced to spend the summer with a grand father she barely know and who is sinking into the quicksands of dementia. I've already lost someone to dementia. show more It's a very grim business.

I'm ashamed to admit that I was also put off by the cover. Could the publishers have put any less effort into it? It's bland, amateur, and not even slightly intriguing.

So why did I read it? It's read by Almarie Guerra, who did a wonderful job with "The Water Knife".
She does a beautiful job with "Hour Of The Bees" and I soon found myself absorbed into the world of twelve-year-old Hispanic girl, spending the summer on a dying ranch in the desert, preparing to move her soon-to-be-lost-to-dementia grandfather for a move to a home.

During the summer, her grandfather tells her the story of his life, starting always with "Once upon a time". The story has strong elements of magical realism or perhaps allegory would be a kinder description, which I normally find tiresome because it so far removed from reality and is obsessed with being clever. Lindsay Eager showed me that it doesn't have to be like that.

She introduces a splendid ambiguity to the storytelling by having the tale told by an old man with dementia to a girl with limited experience of life. This ambiguity left me to make up my own mind and helped me to concentrate on the emotional truths of the novel: that life must be embraced to be lived, that love is the anchor of hope and that a place can have a soul that we can push roots into and be nurtured by.

This is a summer of change for the young girl, making her re-examine who she is and who she wants to become. We see her relationship with her (step)sister shift shape from day to day, her empathy for her parents deepen and her love for her grandfather and the land he's given his life to blossom. She focuses on time and how we measure it and comes to understand that our approach to time changes who we are.

The pace of the story-telling is perfect: slow enough to give the sense of time passing on a remote desert ranch and fast enough to keep you wondering what will happen next. Each moment is threaded between the pearls of "Once upon a time..." storytelling that change the context of the present moment and the meaning of everything that passed before.

"Hours Of The Bees" is a fresh, original and pleasantly non-didactic book that made me think, cry and occasionally laugh. I was surprised to see that it's being marketed (and winning prizes) as a children's book, not because it isn't a good book for children to read, but because I think its range and appeal is much broader than that.

I enjoyed my summer on this ranch in the Painted Desert. I recommend you spend some time there. show less

Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eagar is a thoughtful and gently magical novel for middle-grade readers.
Twelve-year-old Carol is less than thrilled when her family spends the summer at her grandfather Serge’s sheep ranch in the harsh New Mexico desert. Their plan is practical but painful: move him into a care facility due to his dementia and sell the ranch. At first, the story feels grounded in reality, focusing on family tensions and difficult decisions.
But as Carol grows closer to her grandfather, the narrative begins to shift. Serge tells strange, fantastical stories about the desert—stories that may or may not be true. Gradually, the line between reality and magic blurs, drawing Carol (and the reader) into something deeper and more show more mysterious.
The novel explores themes of life and death, bullying, family roots, and the idea that endings are often just new beginnings. At its heart, it’s a story about identity, belonging, and learning to believe in something larger than yourself—all seen through the perspective of a young girl on the edge of growing up.
A quiet but powerful read, this book balances emotional realism with touches of magical wonder. show less

Having just finished this book I still can't tell you if it is a realistic fiction or a fantasy and I LOVE IT! The story is beautifully told and pulls on your heartstrings. Carol is in middle school and has to spend the summer on her grandfather's ranch as they prepare to put him in an assisted living facility because of his dementia. Most of the family members are dreading the situation, Carol included. However, once at the ranch things slowly start to shift as grandpa opens up to Carol and tells her the story of the tree. The book really is a thing of beauty with great lessons about living life instead of fearing death.

This really hit me where I live. Home and roots vs. wanderlust, with an environmentalist allegory about the tending and protection of one's home and how the overuse of resources -- even for the best of reasons -- erodes all the interrelationships that make a home/planet safe. (Reminded me of [b:Bayou Magic|23197281|Bayou Magic|Jewell Parker Rhodes|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1413130729s/23197281.jpg|42742269] in that way.) I was a sobbing mess by the end.

3.5 Magical realism for the YA crowd. Carolina (Carol) and her family are spending the summer at her grandfather Serge's ranch in rural New Mexico. This is the summer before she starts junior high and she would much rather be with her friends. She says "I measure time with changes." (194) "I snap my fingers, just to see how fast a second is. Things change that quickly. If only I could have bottled up that moment and saved it for when I needed it -- but moments can't be stored or repeated. They are lived once, then gone." Serge is succumbing to dementia, so the task is to get the drought-burdened ranch into shape to sell and to put Serge is the Seville, a home for the elderly. Carol's father Raul has not had a very good relationship with show more Serge and so the family doesn't know him well and they barely remember Rosa, their grandmother. Carol's mother, her older, glamorous step-sister Alta and baby brother Luiz (Lu) are part of the family effort to get things in order. Serge fixates on Carolina, as he insists on calling her, to honor "her roots" and because she is the spitting image of Rosa. It is to her he tells his stories, and at first resistant, she later becomes his advocate and helper as he seeks his own way of getting things in order for his death. His stories center on the tree that gave the village life (immortality?) and safety and water for many generations. Carol initially sees this as part of his dementia, but when characters named Sergio, Rosa and Raul are introduced, she begins to wonder if there is some truth to it. "Bees bring the rain" he tells her and she has seen bees buzzing around, but no one else notices. He also talks about Rosa's wanderlust which spread to the village and led them all to dismantle the tree bit by bit to take some its protection with them. When her closet is unlocked and items from all over the world are filled wall-to-wall, again, Carolina begins to see the truth in the story. She is desperate to learn the end before her Grandfather's end. He is the one who stayed fearful of the wider world. His parting words: "Do not be afraid to die and you will not be afraid to live." The tree's demise was the cause of drought and Carol wants to be the one to renew it. The ending gets a little far-fetched even for magical realism -- Carol steals Alta's car to spring Serge from the Seville and drive 3 hours in pouring rain back to the ranch so he can see the drought has ended....but the resulting transformation and the relationship they develop are real enough and give Carol her sense of roots before she moves into a bigger world in the Fall. Beautifully conceived and mostly a smooth read if you are willing to suspend belief and become part of 2 stories. show less

The beginning of Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eagar is ordinary enough. Carol and her family are off to her grandfather Serge's ranch in the middle of the desert. Grandpa has Alzheimer's disease, and they plan to spend the summer at his ranch, packing up the house and preparing it for selling. Grandpa will be moved to a nursing home.

Everything is perfectly normal until Carol sees a bee in this place where it hasn't rained in a hundred years. Grandpa asks if she has seen any bees, because the bees will bring back the rain. You wonder along with Carol if this is his dementia speaking. And there are Grandpa Serge's stories which leave Carol and the reader questioning what is real and what is fantasy. Nothing is pointed out to the reader show more directly. The story is simply told, and you begin to notice things along with Carol. You also see the tight bond form between them, even as his mind deteriorates.

This story is so enchanting and interesting. There are some very intense issues covered: a bullying older half-sister; old tensions between Serge and Carol's father, Raul; dealing with a family member with Alzheimer's. I identified with the Alzheimer's story line, since it brought back my own memories of my family caring for my great grandmother, who suffered from dementia.

The main themes of remembering your roots, life, death, and living keep the story engaging to the very end. The book doesn't preach about what it decides is important, but rather allows the reader to think about what is happening. There are so many opportunities for discussion from this story.

I think the characters were well-developed and the scenes are so well described you can feel the oppressiveness of the drought ridden land and how it affects the family and the animals on the ranch. The only downside in my advanced copy was a number of proofreading errors that tended to pull me out of this beautifully woven tale. I'm sure that will be fixed before the book is released.

I highly recommend this book. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down. show less

Carolina is forced to spend her summer with her family helping ready her grandfather’s home for sale. Carol hasn’t had much contact with her dad’s father and at first she is put off by his gruff manner and his Alzheimer's. But she gradually becomes charmed with his stories of a lake in the desert, a healing tree, and bees that will bring the rain.

I picked up this book at BEA and decided to take it along with me to New Mexico last week solely because the story is set in New Mexico. I was amazed to find a book for kids with thoughtful writing, intriguing character development, and beautiful magic realism.