Helpful Score: 3
Incredible! I feel blessed when I find outstanding reads but when it's a new author to me I am even more thrilled. This novel is wonderful. The author writes with creativity, heart and clarity.
This is the story of the Morales family. It begins with Nana Reja finding a baby covered with a blanket of bees beneath a bridge. The child is named Simonopio. He is a tiny disfigured boy who has been abandoned. Beatriz and Francisco Morales bring the child into their family treating him always as their own. Others in this small Mexican town believe the child is from the devil and/or that only bad luck will fall on the family and the town. So it seems as the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish flu swoop into the their lives.
Simonopio grows with an uncanny perception of where his family members are, what is happening to them and what is to come. His connection with the bees is key to his life and he is rarely without at least one bee on his body. Often he is accompanied by a swarm. As the story unfolds the reader walks with various members of the family and community experiencing their beliefs and emotions. The book is told with inspiration and love. It's a heartwarming tale that shares life at its best and worst. I can only give the book the highest of recommendations. Read it.
This is the story of the Morales family. It begins with Nana Reja finding a baby covered with a blanket of bees beneath a bridge. The child is named Simonopio. He is a tiny disfigured boy who has been abandoned. Beatriz and Francisco Morales bring the child into their family treating him always as their own. Others in this small Mexican town believe the child is from the devil and/or that only bad luck will fall on the family and the town. So it seems as the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish flu swoop into the their lives.
Simonopio grows with an uncanny perception of where his family members are, what is happening to them and what is to come. His connection with the bees is key to his life and he is rarely without at least one bee on his body. Often he is accompanied by a swarm. As the story unfolds the reader walks with various members of the family and community experiencing their beliefs and emotions. The book is told with inspiration and love. It's a heartwarming tale that shares life at its best and worst. I can only give the book the highest of recommendations. Read it.
