I am one of those people who walks through the park in the Spring and Summer and watches the bees amid the blossoms, fascinated by the industrious creatures that make our world work. Meredith May’s The Honey Bus captures this same sense of wonder, narrating a troubled childhood that only begins to fall into place when her world is transformed by her eccentric grandfather and his “honey bus”.
When five-year-old May’s parents split-up, her mother, dealing with severe depression, moves with the children to her parents’ house. With her mother unable to care for her, and grasping for ways to cope in her unraveling world, May finds unexpected solace in an old military bus, where her beekeeper grandfather has constructed a honey farm. With time, she learns to navigate the crumbling world around her by building a new one with the help of her grandfather’s bees, discovering resilience she did not know she possessed.
Now a beekeeper herself, May narrates her childhood with a gentle balance of wit, heartbreak, wonder and journalistic curiosity. The Honey Bus combines May’s extensive knowledge of bees and beekeeping with the story of one little girl who found herself when she felt she had nobody left. This is a must-read for anyone interested in bees and beekeeping or simply anyone who seeks inspiration from an author who was fortunate to find it and to make it her own.
Ginny Dunnill is a librarian at the Ironwood branch of the Richmond Public Library.
